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Sacramento, California — California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Thursday to direct state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments, a month after a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces.

Newsom’s order is aimed at the thousands of tents and makeshift shelters across the state that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks. The order makes clear that the decision to remove the encampments remains in local hands.

The order comes after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces. The case was the most significant on the issue to come before the high court in decades and comes as cities across the country have wrestled with the politically complicated issue of how to deal with a rising number of people without a permanent place to live and public frustration over related health and safety issues.

Newsom’s administration wrote in support of cities’ argument that previous rulings, including one that barred San Francisco from clearing encampments until more shelter beds were available, have prevented the state from solving a critical problem.

“There are simply no more excuses. It’s time for everyone to do their part,” Newsom said in a statement.

While Newsom cannot order local authorities to act, his administration can apply pressure by withholding money for counties and cities.

California is home to roughly one-third of the nation’s population of homeless people, a problem that has dogged Newsom since he took office. Newsom touted that his administration has spent roughly $24 billion aimed at cleaning up streets and housing people but acknowledged the stubbornness of the issue. Newsom’s administration has also come under fire recently after a state audit found that the state didn’t consistently track whether the huge outlay of public money actually improved the situation.

Newsom has worked hard to address the issue. He threw all of his political weight behind a ballot measure earlier this year to allow the state to borrow nearly $6.4 billion to build 4,350 housing units, which passed with a razor-thin margin.

The order comes as Republicans have stepped up their criticisms of California and its homelessness crisis as Vice President Kamala Harris — a former California district attorney, attorney general and senator — launches her presidential campaign. Harris entered the race over the weekend after President Joe Biden’s announced that he would not seek reelection. Newsom himself has presidential ambitions.

The timing of the executive order is “curious,” said California political analyst Brian Sobel, but he doubts Newsom’s move would have much impact on Harris’ campaign.

“Harris’ problem isn’t in California, because California is a done deal,” he said. “Where she needs to do well on issues like this are in swing states.”

Rather, the order is a logical step for Newsom, who called himself the state’s “homeless czar” and made homelessness a signature policy issue the last few years, said Wesley Hussey, a political science professor at California State University, Sacramento.

 

“I don’t think it’s being motivated by the presidential race as much as it’s definitely something that Newsom cared a lot about,” Hussey said. “If you’re going to put it in a political context of the election, this isn’t going to magically fix the problem.”

Newsom’s decision have garnered praises from local elected officials and business groups, who said they were left with no options to address homeless encampments before the Supreme Court’s ruling. San Francisco Mayor London Breed recently said the city will start an “aggressive” campaign to clear encampments across the city in August. Her office noted that the governor’s order does not affect the city’s operations.

“I applaud Governor Newsom’s emphasis on urgency,” Kathryn Barger, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors said in a statement. “He rightfully points out that local government remains at the helm of homeless encampment removals. Cities have an obligation to develop housing and shelter solutions in tandem with support services provided by County government.”

Homeless people and their advocates say the sweeps are cruel and a waste of taxpayer money. They say the answer is more housing, not crackdowns.

Under Newsom’s direction, state agencies — including state parks and the Department of Transportation — would be required to prioritize clearing encampments that pose safety risks, such as those camping along waterways. Officials should give advance notice to vacate, connect homeless people to local services and help store their belongings for at least 60 days. Local cities and counties are urged to adopt similar protocols.
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washington — The appearance of two Russian and two Chinese long-range, strategic bombers in the skies off of coastal Alaska may have been a first, but it did not catch the United States off-guard.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Thursday the appearance of the Russian and Chinese aircraft “was not a surprise” and that at no time did the bombers pose a threat to the United States.

“We have very good surveillance capabilities,” Austin said during a rare news conference at the Pentagon. “We closely monitored these aircraft, tracked the aircraft, intercepted the aircraft, which demonstrates that our forces are at the ready all the time.” 

And if Russia and China fly more similar missions in the future, Austin said he has every confidence that U.S. forces will be prepared.

“We are at the ready. We will always be at the ready,” he said. “If there is a challenge or a threat to the United States of America, your troops will be at the ready and they will do the right thing.”

NORAD tracks aircraft

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) first shared word of the Russian and Chinese military activity late Wednesday.

NORAD said it tracked two Russian TU-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers operating in the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) — a stretch of international airspace where planes must be identified — off the coast of the northwestern state of Alaska.

A statement said U.S. and Canadian fighter jets were sent to intercept the Russian and Chinese planes, and that at no time did the Russian or Chinese pilots enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace.

“This Russian and PRC activity in the Alaska ADIZ is not seen as a threat, and NORAD will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence,” it said.

Flight was joint patrol, say Russia and China

Russia and China on Thursday described the flight as a joint patrol over the Chukchi and Bering seas in the north Pacific.

“During the flight, Russian and Chinese crews cooperated in the new area of joint operations during all stages of the air patrol,” the Russian ministry said in a statement, describing the exercise as “part of the implementation of the military cooperation plan for 2024.”

Russian officials said the entire flight lasted five hours and that the bombers were at times escorted by Russian fighter jets, emphasizing that at no time did the bombers violate U.S. or Canadian airspace.

A spokesperson for the Chinese military said the patrol was designed to improve coordination between the Chinese and Russian militaries, and said it was the eighth joint air patrol since 2019.

The U.S., however, said the Russian-Chinese air patrol was the first to approach the area around Alaska.

“This is the first time we’ve seen those two countries fly together like that,” Austin told reporters, adding the Russian and Chinese bombers never got closer than about 320 kilometers from the Alaskan coast.

The U.S. defense secretary declined to comment on the timing of the Russian-Chinese air patrol, though he said, “you could probably guess that things like that have probably been planned well in advance.”

Earlier this week, the Pentagon issued its new Arctic defense strategy, which called for increased investment and increased cooperation among the U.S. and its Arctic allies to counter both Russian and Chinese activity.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have also raised concerns about growing cooperation between Russia and China, along with Iran and North Korea, as Moscow has sought support for its war in Ukraine.

U.S. and Western officials have repeatedly accused China of playing a critical role in sustaining Russia’s military by sending Russia raw materials and so-called dual-use components needed to produce advanced weapons and weapons systems.

“There is no time to lose,” a NATO official told VOA earlier this month, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the need to counter the growing defense cooperation.

“This must be a key priority for all our allies, because it is not just about spending more,” the official said. “It is also on getting those capabilities.”

Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.
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kyiv, ukraine — The former prisoners of war still puzzle over the strange events leading up to the night now seared into their memories, when an explosion ripped through the Russian-controlled Olenivka prison barracks and killed so many comrades two years ago.

Among the survivors: Kyrylo Masalitin, whose months in captivity and long beard age him beyond his 30 years. Arsen Dmytryk, the informal commander of the group of POWs that was shifted without explanation to a room newly stocked with bare bunks. And Mykyta Shastun, who recalled guards laughing as the building burned, acting not at all like men under enemy attack.

“Before my eyes, there were guys who were dying, who were being revived, but it was all in vain,” said Masalitin, who is back on the front line and treated as a father figure by the men he commands.

The Associated Press interviewed over a dozen people with direct knowledge of details of the attack, including survivors, investigators and families of the dead and missing. All described evidence they believe points directly to Russia as the culprit. The AP also obtained an internal United Nations analysis that found the same.

Despite the conclusion of the internal analysis that found Russia planned and executed the attack, the U.N. stopped short of accusing Russia in public statements.

Of 193 Ukrainians in the barracks, fewer than two dozen made it back home. More than 50 died on the night of July 28, 2022. Around 120 are missing and believed detained somewhere in Russia. Russia accused Ukraine of striking its own men with U.S.-supplied missiles.

There are no active international investigations into the attack and a Ukrainian inquiry is one of tens of thousands of war crimes for investigators there, raising wider questions about whether those who committed crimes in occupied areas can ever face justice.

The U.N. has rejected Russia’s claims that Ukrainian government HIMARS targeted the men, as do the victims who returned in prisoner exchanges, like Masalitin. When the former POWs have time to reflect – rare since many have returned to the fight – they say too many things don’t add up.

In the days following the Olenivka deaths, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres launched an independent mission to investigate. Russia refused to guarantee the mission’s safety and its members never traveled either to occupied territory in the eastern Donetsk region or to Ukrainian-held territory. It dissolved five months later.

But when survivors began to return to Ukraine in exchanges, a U.N. field team that had been in-country since 2014 sought them out.

That team analyzed 70 open-source images, 20 statements by Russian officials along with 16 survivor interviews from Russian television. They conducted in-depth interviews with 55 freed POWs who were in the barracks or elsewhere in Olenivka during the attack. Their conclusion: Russia planned and executed the attack.

The 100-page analysis circulated at the highest levels of the U.N. but was never intended to be published in full. Some of the evidence was incorporated piecemeal into broader U.N. reports on the war, including one that said the missile traveled from east to west. The Russian Federation controls the territory east of where the prisoners were kept. The U.N. never publicly blamed Russia.

Names on a list

The lists of names the Russians drew up in late July 2022 had no explanation, no context. All the men listed were from the Azov unit who became national heroes after holding out for months against an overwhelmingly larger Russian force in the city of Mariupol. The prisoners were told to be ready. No one knew why.

On the morning of July 27, 2022, the group was rounded up and led to an industrial section of the colony, away from the other five POW barracks. They were taken to a cinder-block building with a tin-plate roof and 100 bunks, no mattresses and a hastily dug pit toilet, multiple survivors told AP.

“Everything in the barracks was prepared very quickly,” said Arsen Dmytryk, who outranked the others and became the informal leader. The barbed wire was cheap and flimsy, and there were machine tools inside, indicating that the building was recently a workshop.

The prison director visited to tell them that their old barracks were under renovation, although plenty of other prisoners had remained. Ukrainians who have been since released said there was no renovation.

That first day, the guards dug trenches for themselves, said Shastun. Ukraine’s Security Service told AP that their analysis confirmed the presence of the unusual new trenches.

On July 28, the colony management ordered the guard post moved further away, and for the first time the barrack guards “wore bullet-proof vests and helmets which they had not done before and unlike other colony personnel who rarely wore them,” according to a section of the internal U.N. analysis later incorporated into public reports.

On the night of July 28 around 10:30 p.m., Dmytryk completed his checks, cut the lights, climbed into the top bunk and fell asleep at once. An explosion woke him perhaps 45 minutes later, followed by the sound of a Grad missile launcher. But he’d heard that before and drifted back to sleep.

Ukrainian POWs elsewhere in the colony told the U.N. investigators that the Grad fire muffled sounds of the bigger explosions.

Pleas for help returned with threats

Dmytryk’s memories then turn apocalyptic. His body burned with shrapnel wounds. Fire raged. Men screamed in pain. And he climbed down from his bunk, he checked the pulse of the man below him. He was already dead. He and other witnesses told AP they ran outside through broken walls to beg the guards to send help for the injured.

“They fired into the air, saying, ‘Stay away from the gates, don’t come closer,'” Dmytryk recalled.

If Dmytryk’s memories are a narrative of horror, Shastun’s are more like disjointed film scenes. He recalled the guards just stood there laughing, tossing rags and flashlights at the panicked Ukrainians.

It took hours before POW medics were sent from the other barracks to help, around the same time as Russian forces brought in trucks and told survivors to load them with the most severely wounded.

“We carried them on stretchers, lifted them into the car, unloaded them and then ran back to get the other wounded,” Shastun said. One person died in a comrade’s arms. It was mid-morning when they finished, and the trucks were piled with bloody men.

Dmytryk was among them, his face caked in dried blood. He said men in another truck died before they made it to the hospital in Donetsk. The U.N. said in its public report of March 2023 that slow medical care worsened the death toll.

“They transported us like cattle, not stopping, speeding over bumps and taking sharp turns,” he said.

Also among the wounded was Serhii Alieksieievych, whose wife, Mariia, last caught sight of him in his hospital bed in a video circulating on Russian media, slowly answering questions as he recovered from his injuries.

Survivors isolated from other prisoners

Back at Olenivka, Shastun was one of approximately 70 survivors with lesser injuries who were taken to two 5×5 meter cells as the last of the trucks drove away, to be isolated from the rest of the prison colony. There were wooden pallets for sleeping and a single toilet in each.

The internal U.N. analysis said their isolation was intended to prevent survivors speaking to others in the colony about what happened that night because some prisoners had access to mobile phones and had direct contact with Ukraine. It also left them unaware of the debate raging outside.

According to the analysis, other Ukrainian prisoners were then sent to the bombed barracks and ordered to remove debris and the remaining bodies. Two hours later, that group was sent into a nearby hangar, and some saw men in camouflage bringing boxes of ammunition to the blast site and setting HIMARS fragments on a blue bench nearby.

Russian officials soon arrived, accompanied by Russian journalists whose images of twisted, charred bunk beds, HIMARS fragments and bodies laid out in the sun spread across the world.

The Ukrainians in the nearby hangar said after everyone was gone, the men in camouflage returned everything to the boxes and left.

As the clock ticked down to a U.N. Security Council meeting later that day, Russia and Ukraine blamed each other.

Russia opened an investigation and said Kyiv did it to silence soldiers from confessing to their “crimes” and used their recently acquired American-made HIMARS rockets. Ukraine denied the charge and said Russia was framing Ukraine to discredit the country before its allies.

The international community didn’t know who to believe. That’s when the U.N. announced it would conduct its own investigation, but negotiations to access the site were long and ultimately fruitless. Guterres’ special mission was disbanded on January 5, 2023, having never traveled to Ukraine.

“The members of the mission were of the view that it would be indispensable for them to be able to access all the relevant sites, materials and victims in order to fulfill its task and establish the facts of the incident,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told AP. Without that, the mission “was not in a position to provide any conclusions.”

But the separate Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, which had been based in the country since Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, didn’t wait. The team combed through testimonies on Russian television from 16 survivors taken to the hospital, examined public images from the site and analyzed 20 statements made by Russian officials who visited the prison.

The mission informally shared an abridged version of its preliminary analysis with the U.N.’s newly formed Olenivka probe.

Then on September 22, a surprise prisoner swap gave the Human Rights Monitoring Mission its first chance to speak to witnesses and survivors. But from the date of the explosion, it would take eight months for any of that material to emerge publicly, and then only in pieces.

Dujarric did not respond to questions about the internal analysis.

In July 2023, U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Turk publicly stated what the internal report had first said nearly a year before — that HIMARS were not responsible. Three months later, the U.N. devoted a section to Olenivka in its annual report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. Again, cribbing from the internal analysis, the report noted that HIMARS were not responsible, that the fragments shown by Russian officials were not “in situ,” the scene had been contaminated and physical evidence disturbed.

The report concluded that the damage “appeared consistent with a projected ordnance having travelled with an east-to-west trajectory.” It failed to note that Russia controlled the eastern territory.

Fading hopes for justice

A Ukrainian investigation is ongoing, according to Taras Semkiv of the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s war crimes unit. The challenge is to identify the weapon used, in hopes that could lead to who ordered the attack. Semkiv said it’s been narrowed to three possibilities — artillery, planted explosives or a grenade launcher.

The Olenivka director is named as a suspect in “conspiracy for the ill-treatment of POWs” but the investigation leaves open the probability that more people were involved. At the war crimes unit headquarters of the Ukraine Security Service, known as the SBU, meters-long charts line the walls, illustrating the hierarchy of Russian officials responsible for various sections of the front line.

Semkiv said no international investigators have requested information from the General Prosecutor’s Office since the deaths at Olenivka, including the disbanded U.N. fact-finding mission. He said initial optimism about the mission faded as soon as it became clear that they would not investigate at all if there was no access to the prison.

“Technology is advancing rapidly, and there are ways to assess the situation without the direct presence of an investigator or prosecutor at the scene,” he said.

Relatives of those missing from the bombed barracks say they’re now alone in their search for answers.

First there was hope “that the world would not turn its back on us,” said Mariia Alieksieievych, the wife of the soldier seen recovering in the Donetsk hospital video. Her letters to her husband are shots in the dark – she hands them to the Red Cross, but as far as she knows there’s never been access to the prisoners. She said Ukraine’s government gives them no help or news about whether the men could be included in any future exchanges and has ignored requests for a day of remembrance for the Olenivka victims.

Her fading hopes for an international investigation have been replaced by determination.

She and other relatives want the International Criminal Court to take up the case, but she’s realistic enough to know that’s a distant possibility.

Her goal in the meantime: “To save the lives of our defenders, to bring them home. Because in Russian captivity, death is not an isolated case.”
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Athens — Greece formally approved an offer to buy 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the United States as part of a major defense overhaul, government officials said Thursday.

“The letter of acceptance for the F-35s has been signed and sent to the United States,” Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said while visiting a military air base near Athens.

The purchase, he said, would create “a powerful deterrent presence in our region.”

Delivery of the fifth-generation jet made by Lockheed Martin is expected to start in 2028, while Greece maintains the option to purchase 20 additional F-35 jets as part of an $8.6 billion deal.

The purchase of the first 20 jets along with additional support will cost some $3.5 billion, Greek officials said.

Greece is overhauling its military in a decade-long program following a protracted financial crisis and continued tension with neighbor and NATO ally Turkey, mostly over a volatile sea boundary dispute. 

Turkey was dropped from the F-35 program five years ago over its decision to buy Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile system, a move seen in the United States as a compromise to NATO security. 

In Athens, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis described the current military modernization campaign as the most significant in “many decades.” 

“We will continue to implement this major program, equipping our country and armoring its defenses,” Marinakis said.

Athens has been seeking an advantage in the air since Turkey’s exclusion from F-35 purchases and has also acquired advanced French-made Rafale fighter jets. Deliveries to the Greek air force began in 2021, starting with jets previously used by France’s military that will be supplemented by new aircraft built by French defense contractor Dassault Aviation. 

Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed Martin’s vice president and general manager of the F-35 program, described the aircraft as being ideal to “strengthen Greece’s sovereignty and operational capability with allies.” “It is our honor to continue (our) relationship as Greece becomes the 19th nation to join the F-35 program,” she said. 

The U.S. State Department in January approved the sale that could eventually total 40 F-35 aircraft, along with 42 engines as well as services and equipment including secure communications devices, electronic warfare systems, training, logistics, and maintenance support. 

Current members of the F-35 program, either as participants or through military sales, are: the United States, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Israel, Japan, Korea, Belgium, Poland, Singapore, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
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YouTube star Lily Hevesh has been mesmerizing viewers with domino creations for 15 years. Last weekend, at the National Building Museum in Washington, she completed her most ambitious project yet: she brought down an installation of 100,000 dominoes and set a world record. Maxim Adams reports. Camera: Dmitry Shakhov, Artem Kohan.
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — As state treasurer, Vivek Malek pushed Missouri’s main retirement system to pull its investments from Chinese companies, making Missouri among the first nationally to do so. Now Malek is touting the Chinese divestment as he seeks reelection in an August 6 Republican primary against challengers who also are denouncing financial connections to China.

The Missouri treasurer’s race highlights a new facet of opposition to China, which has been cast as a top threat to the U.S. by many candidates seeking election this year. Indiana and Florida also have restricted their public pension funds from investing in certain Chinese companies. Similar legislation targeting public investments in foreign adversaries was vetoed in Arizona and proposed in Illinois and Oklahoma.

China ranks as the world’s second-largest economy behind the U.S.

Between 2018 and 2022, U.S. public pension and university endowments invested about $146 billion in China, according to an analysis by Future Union, a nonprofit pro-democracy group led by venture capitalist Andrew King. The report said more than four-fifths of U.S. states have at least one public pension fund investing in China and Hong Kong.

“Frankly, there should be shame — more shame than there is — for continuing to have those investments at this point in time,” said King, who asserts that China has used intellectual property from U.S. companies to make similar products that undercut market prices.

“You’re talking a considerable amount of money that frankly is competing against the U.S. technology and innovation ecosystem,” King said.

But some investment officials and economists have raised concerns that the emerging patchwork of state divestment policies could weaken investment returns for retirees.

“Most of these policies are unwise and would make U.S. citizens poorer,” said Ben Powell, an economics professor who is executive director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University.

The National Association of State Retirement Administrators opposes state-mandated divestments, saying such orders should come only from the federal government against specific companies based on U.S. security or humanitarian interests.

The U.S. Treasury Department recently proposed a rule prohibiting American investors from funding artificial intelligence systems in China that could have military uses, such as weapons targeting. In May, President Joe Biden blocked a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base, calling it a “national security risk.”

Yet this isn’t the first time that states have blacklisted particular investments. Numerous states, cities and universities divested from South Africa because of apartheid before the U.S. Congress eventually took action. Some states also have divested from tobacco companies because of health concerns.

Most recently, some states announced a divestment from Russia because of its war against Ukraine. But that has been difficult to carry out for some public pension fund administrators.

The quest to halt investments in Chinese companies comes as a growing number of states also have targeted Chinese ownership of U.S. land. Two dozen states now have laws restricting foreign ownership of agricultural land, according to the National Agricultural Law Center at the University of Arkansas. Some laws apply more broadly, such as one facing a legal challenge in Florida that bars Chinese citizens from buying property within 16 kilometers of military installations and critical infrastructure.

State pension divestment policies are “part of a broader march toward more confrontation between China and the United States,” said Clark Packard, a research fellow for trade policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. But “it makes it more challenging for the federal government to manage the overall relationship if we’ve got to deal with a scattershot policy at the state level.”

Indiana last year became the first to enact a law requiring the state’s public pension system to gradually divest from certain Chinese companies. As of March 31, 2023, the system had about $1.2 billion invested in Chinese entities with $486 million subject to the divestment requirement. A year later, its investment exposure in China had fallen to $314 million with just $700,000 still subject to divestment, the Indiana Public Retirement System said.

Missouri State Treasurer Malek tried last November to get fellow trustees of the Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System to divest from Chinese companies. After defeat, he tried again in December and won approval for a plan requiring divestment over a 12-month period. Officials at the retirement system did not respond to repeated questions from The Associated Press about the status of that divestment.

In recent weeks, Malek has highlighted the Chinese divestment in campaign ads, asserting that fentanyl from China “is drugging our kids” and vowing: “As long as I’m treasurer, they won’t get money from us. Not one penny.”

Two of Malek’s main challengers in the Republican primary — state Rep. Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig — also support divestment from China.

Koenig said China is becoming less stable and “a more risky place to have money invested.”

“In China, the line between public and private is much more blurry than it is in America,” Smith said. “So I don’t think we can fully know that if we are investing in Chinese companies that we are not also aiding an enemy of the United States.” 

A law signed earlier this year by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis requires a state board overseeing the retirement system to develop a plan by September 1 to divest from companies owned by China. The oversight board had announced in March 2022 that it would stop making new Chinese investments. As of May, it still had about $277 million invested in Chinese-owned entities, including banks, energy firms and alcohol companies, according to an analysis by Florida legislative staff.

Florida law already prohibits investment in certain companies tied to Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, or those engaged in an economic boycott against Israel.

In April, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have required divestment from companies in countries determined by the federal government to be foreign adversaries. That list includes China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

Hobbs said in a letter to lawmakers that the measure “would be detrimental to the economic growth Arizona is experiencing as well as the State’s investment portfolio.” 
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WASHINGTON — Retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who was chief of staff on former President Donald Trump’s national security council, spoke with VOA about his vision for ending the war in Ukraine.

Kellogg says he is not a formal adviser to the former president and has not presented his plan to Trump, but it is one of the options that he could consider if he is elected in November.

Kellogg also served as the national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence in the Trump administration. He now co-chairs the Center on American Security at America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group.

The Ukraine strategy was published back in May by AFPI as part of their An America First Approach to U.S. National Security, edited by Fred Fleitz, who also served as chief of staff at the National Security Council during Trump’s presidency and co-wrote with Kellogg the chapter on the Russia-Ukraine war.

It suggests that the U.S. should begin a formal policy “to seek a cease-fire and negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict.” The U.S. would continue to arm Ukraine to deter Russia from attacking during or after a deal is reached, but under the condition that Kyiv agrees to enter into peace talks with Russia.

To persuade Russia to participate in the negotiations, the U.S. and other NATO partners would delay Ukraine’s membership in the alliance for an extended period in exchange for a “comprehensive and verifiable deal with security guarantees.”

They write that Ukraine will not be asked to give up its ambition to regain all land seized by Russia, but Kyiv should agree to use diplomatic means only and realize that it might take a long time to regain all the territories. The strategy proposes to use the partial lifting of sanctions on Russia to encourage the Kremlin to take steps toward peace and establish levies on Russian energy imports to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction.

The interview with Kellogg, recorded on July 18 at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Can you tell a little bit about the plan? I think it’s the most detailed paper coming publicly from Republican and Republican-affiliated groups.

Retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg: We’ve said very clearly in our paper that Ukraine has fought valiantly. They are very well led. We think the Russians did clearly an unwarranted invasion of a sovereign state and this must be addressed. President Trump, to his credit, said in the very first debate when he was asked by one of the commentators, Dana Bash, do the Russians basically get to keep the territories? He said no, not at all. He said not once, he did it twice.

So, there’s a negotiation, you are going to figure out what your starting points are going to be. You want to make sure that Ukrainians are not put at the position when they’re operating from weaknesses, but from strength. So, the question is how do you do that? And how you put all the pieces and parts in place? Nobody is ever saying that: “Oh, we just have to make Ukrainians to give up land and give it to Russia.” Look when you look at your losses, the losses in Ukraine alone, depending on who you talk to, you’re talking between 100,000 and 130,000 deaths. That’s enormous because when I look at [Russia’s losses] they have had three times that. The United States of America lost 60,000 in the Vietnam war. That was a 20-year war we went away from. The Russians, then the Soviets, lost 15,000 in Afghanistan and walked away from it.

If the Ukrainians say no and the Russians say no, then they can do it in a different way. But I think you started to ask yourself questions is this what’s best for Ukraine as a nation? I don’t care about Russia. I care about Ukraine.

Let’s say a year and a half ago the Russians turn their heels and if the West had provided the equipment that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy asked for, then you probably could have finished the job. You could have gotten into the Sea of Azov through Kherson, splitting them in half, and that is what you wanted to do. So, I blame this administration and the West to a degree for not supporting Ukraine when they should have.

VOA: The Biden administration is saying that they want to put Ukraine in the position of strength before it can negotiate with Russia. You are suggesting pretty much the same, right?

Kellogg: No, that’s a false statement. Have the United States given Ukraine a support of F-16s? No. Did we provide long-range fires early for the Ukrainians to shoot in Russians? No. Did we provide permission for them to shoot deep into Russia? No. Did the United States provide them the armored capabilities they needed? We gave 31 tanks. Thirty-one tanks is not even a battalion in the United States army. So, they talk about it, but it didn’t really happen.

VOA: Ukrainian officials might be cautious about entering into the negotiations with Russians because it might send a signal to their partners that they don’t need military aid anymore.

Kellogg: You have to give more arms to them because you can’t trust the Russians. You just have to do it, and the question is, do you do this before Europe tires, Americans tire, Ukrainians tire? Two and a half years — that’s a long war and the destruction is enormous. Sometimes you have to look at what we call in America the long game. And that is security guarantees, financial support and military support. We have to bring that to the American people, you know, President Biden has only talked to American people one time. You got to talk to them a lot. President Biden has only talked to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin one time. When I was with President Trump, he was talking to him 17 different times. It doesn’t mean he likes him. But you have to talk to your adversary.

VOA: Why would Russians want to negotiate?

Kellogg: You need to give them reasons to negotiate. You can give an extreme reason and say, OK, you’ve got to get back all the land from Ukraine. Maybe, short-term you tell Ukraine, we’re not going to support you coming to NATO, but we give you a bilateral security agreement.

VOA: The U.S. and Ukraine have just signed a security agreement.

Kellogg: That was not a defense agreement. A defense agreement should be ratified by the Senate. What you have to do is to come up with a peace agreement like we’ve done with Korea, we did years ago with Taiwan.

VOA: But what is the contingency plan if Russia doesn’t abide by the agreement.

Kellogg: That is part of negotiation. That’s where both sides draw the red lines. That’s where both sides make the determination: this is what we’re going to do or not do.

VOA: Ukraine already tried that signing the Minsk agreements with Russia.

Kellogg: Minsk agreements worked very well, didn’t they? They’re lousy. They didn’t do anything because nobody trusted anybody, and nobody worked together. You had Minsk 1, failed; Minsk 2, failed. Budapest memorandum, failed. So, you have to have some kind of degree of confidence and security.

VOA: One of the reasons why the negotiations in Istanbul broke down was that Russians demanded Ukraine’s demilitarization, a smaller army.

Kellogg: Yes. And this is an unacceptable demand. And you don’t walk into negotiating with unacceptable demands. But you have to have an ability, we call it an interlocutor. An interlocutor is somebody who can sit down and actually negotiate with both parties. It can be Trump, President Trump believes he can do it, but you also have to look at who else is out there. President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan of Turkey, do you think he could do it? No, he’s not going to do it. [Chancellor Olaf] Scholz from Germany, you think he will do it? No, he is not going to do it. [President Emmanuel] Macron from France, he tried but hasn’t done it. Well, now they had a change in government in Britain. So that’s gone away. You know, I don’t know maybe [Klaus] Iohannis, [the president] of Romania. Maybe he could do it, but you have to have somebody that both sides could talk to.

President Trump is talking to both parties. And President Biden is not. Now the option is quite clear: If Ukraine doesn’t want to negotiate, fine, but then accept the fact that you can have enormous losses in your cities and accept the fact that you will have your children killed, accept the fact that you don’t have 130,000 dead, you will have 230,000–250,000. Demographically, what does that do to the country?

You have to accept the fact that maybe the threat will remain on Kyiv, you have to accept the fact that Kharkiv will have more damage or do you want to say this is time maybe we take a pause and figure out how to push the Russians out of there so that they don’t get territorial gain. And how do you have a long-term peace agreement?

Let’s use NATO as an example. NATO has already said they’re not going to support Ukraine going into NATO until the war is over. That’s the reality and that’s where you need somebody to stand as a negotiator and say no, this is where we want to go.

The size of this war is not appreciated in the West. That is the largest war in Europe since World War II, it is between the two largest countries in Europe. The losses have been horrific.

It is too great of a country, and I’ve been there. I have been to Izyum, I’ve been to Kharkiv and I’ve seen what Russians did to it. There’s no love for Russians. There’s a support for sovereignty. Figure out a way does not mean we say give up land.

VOA: The other reason why the negotiations in Istanbul broke down is because it became known what happened in Bucha. It means that if Ukraine allows Russia to continue occupying any of its lands, it condemns the people who live there. …

Kellogg: Who is saying to give up land?

VOA: Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance alluded to that.

Kellogg: J.D. Vance was just nominated as the vice president last night. Until that, he was just a senator, one of 100. Yeah, you can say a lot of things in the Senate. When you speak for an administration, things change. 
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washington — After three days of silence over his stunning decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, U.S. President Joe Biden took to prime time television Tuesday to give Americans, and the world, an explanation in a speech that was at times hopeful, at times determined, and at times wistful. 

Biden spoke of his five decades in public office, touted his presidential record of domestic and political achievements – but then called for energetic new leadership to face tomorrow’s challenges.

 

“I revere this office,” said Biden, his hands resting on the glossy, hulking Resolute Desk, the gold-brocade drapes of the Oval Office framing his sloping shoulders. “But I love my country more.”

“Nothing – nothing – can come in the way of saving our democracy,” he said. “That includes personal ambition. So, I decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. It’s the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices. Fresh voices. Yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”

Biden also thanked Vice President Kamala Harris, who has taken to the campaign trail with his endorsement and enough delegate pledges to net the nomination. He described her as “experienced,” “tough,” and “capable” but added: “the choice is up to you.”

He did not name-check his Republican opponent in the race. But analysts say Biden’s stark warnings all point to one man. 

“He talked about polarization,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a professor of communication and journalism at Texas A&M University. “He talked about violence and political violence. Those are all things that harken back to Donald Trump and his presidency. He talked about the threats facing the nation when he first took office, January 2021. And so that was certainly about Donald Trump. But yeah, this wasn’t a place for him to talk about Donald Trump. It wasn’t a place for him to give a campaign speech.”

Biden’s job now, he said, will focus on domestic challenges like civil rights and voter freedom, gun safety reforms, the quest to end cancer and Supreme Court reform. He also cited the various challenges the U.S. faces abroad, with wars raging in Gaza and Ukraine and China becoming more emboldened in the Indo-Pacific. 

It’s those foreign fires, analysts say, that are likely to concern voters who were already worried about Biden’s future. 

“That’s really the concern I think people will have, which is: How does a lame duck president deal with foreign policy crises?” said Thomas Schwartz, a history professor at Vanderbilt University.

That question may be answered as soon as Thursday, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House in what administration officials told reporters Wednesday is an attempt to stitch up the first phase of a longer cease-fire deal that will end the brutal nine-month conflict in Gaza.  

In a sign that foreign leaders may be hedging their bets in this electric American election cycle, the Israeli leader is also holding two other meetings while in the U.S., with Harris and Trump. 

But for the final act of this presidency, Joe Biden remains the protagonist on America’s biggest stage. The ending, analysts say, is a classic.  

“What has stopped Joe Biden is the thing that has stopped every human being since the beginning of time, and that is, we age,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at the policy and research firm Third Way. “And it got to the point where I feel he could do the job, but he couldn’t convince the American people that he could do the job.”

 

But this could also be a triumphant moment for the 81-year-old president, who was widely thanked by Democrats for making the decision to step aside. 

”In some ways,” Kessler said, “he’s like an athlete that is going to make the Hall of Fame and is retiring and gets the cheers from the crowds, finally, for a long, 50-year, tremendous career.”

Biden clearly understood that this address would be a dramatic peak. So, he used his final words to break the fourth wall, with a message as old as America:

“The great thing about America,” he said, “is here, kings and dictators do not rule, the people do. History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands.”

Kim Lewis contributed from Washington.
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In the internationally accepted economic ranking by nominal GDP, the U.S. remains the world’s leading economy, while Russia ranks 11th. Volodin referred to Russia’s ranking by the purchasing power parity, or PPP, not the actual size and strength of the economy.
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washington — North Korea’s broadening ties with Russia make a possible re-engagement with the U.S. less appealing for Pyongyang despite an apparent overture from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, analysts said.

A delegation from the Russian prosecutor’s office wrapped up a three-day visit to Pyongyang and headed home Wednesday, North Korea’s state-run KCNA said.

Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, the head of the delegation, and Kim Chol Won, director of North Korea’s Central Public Prosecutors Office, signed an agreement on Monday to cooperate on law enforcement countering foreign influence.

Krasnov said the two countries are “actively developing their comprehensive partnership” in “openly and successfully fighting off attempts to impose alien development models and values on us,” according to the Russian news agency Tass.

Krasnov said Moscow and Pyongyang seek to consolidate their efforts in countering “crimes in the area of information and communications technologies,” among other areas.

The ties between the two have been expanding rapidly in multiple areas since Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang in June and signed a mutual defense treaty with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, promising closer military cooperation.

Russia-North Korea ties

“Kim Jong Un may see less need to engage with the U.S. than in 2018 because the regime is now getting economic and possibly military benefits from Russia,” said Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation.

North Korea said, “We do not care” that “any administration takes office in the U.S.” or that Trump has “lingering desire for the prospects of the DPRK-U.S. relations,” according to state-run KCNA on Tuesday.

The statement was released after Trump said last week in his presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republic National Convention that he “got along very well with Kim” and thought Kim wanted him to win the presidential election in November.

During his term, Trump’s personal diplomacy with Kim resulted in their first 2018 summit in Singapore, a failed 2019 summit in Hanoi, and a last meeting at the inter-Korean border in 2019.

But that engagement came before Kim had Putin by his side, according to Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation  chair in Korea studies at the Brookings Institution.  “There’s less incentive for Kim to engage with the U.S.” now that Russia and China are backing him, Yeo said.

“That said, Kim is an opportunist, so I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Kim reaching out to Trump at some point if Trump is reelected,” Yeo added.

Little incentive for talks

In its KCNA statement, North Korea also said, “It is true that Trump, when he was president, tried to reflect the special personal relations between the heads of states in the relations between states, but he did not bring about any substantial positive change.”

Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program, said the KCNA statement “reflected that Kim felt humiliated when Trump walked out of the Hanoi summit rather than continuing negotiations, and the strategic choices Kim has made since 2019 — that he has abandoned long-standing North Korean interest in normalizing relations with the U.S.

“If Trump wins, he may be tempted to try to revive nuclear talks with Kim, but Pyongyang has taken denuclearization off the table. The political space for a more limited, credible U.S.-North Korea deal has shrunk immensely.”

Trump walked out of the summit in Hanoi, rejecting Kim’s offer to dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facility in return for sanctions relief.

Nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea have remained stalled since 2019 despite the Biden administration’s call for Pyongyang to return to dialogue.

In the same KCNA statement that rebuffed Trump’s outreach, North Korea expressed its dissatisfaction with the deployment of U.S. FA-18 Super Hornets to the Suwon Air Force Base for joint drills with South Korea that began Tuesday and will run through this summer.

Washington’s continued call for dialogue in this context is a “sinister attempt” and “an extension of confrontation,” North Korea said.

The Heritage Foundation’s Klingner said North Korea’s message “hinted that the price for it reengaging with Washington would be the cancellation of bilateral military exercises, rotational deployment of U.S. strategic assets and reduction of the U.S. extended deterrence guarantee.

“If Washington capitulated to those demands, Pyongyang could seek to further divide the U.S.-ROK alliance and degrade deterrence by proposing a peace declaration or treaty which could then lead to advocacy for a premature decrease of U.S. troops in South Korea.”
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State Department  — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will depart for Asia on Thursday to reaffirm ties with strategic allies, following his attendance at a highly anticipated White House meeting between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The secretary will now depart tomorrow for Asia, instead of tonight, as we had originally planned, so he can attend the meeting between the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu tomorrow here in Washington,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during Wednesday’s briefing.  

Washington said it is committed to allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, despite the Middle East crisis.  

“This is the secretary’s 18th trip to the region,” Miller added. “He will still travel to Laos, to Vietnam, to Japan, to Singapore, to the Philippines and to Mongolia.”  

Blinken will hold talks with senior officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, Laos, before traveling to Hanoi, Vietnam. Although a schedule change will prevent him from attending the funeral of General Secretary Nguyen Phú Trong, the head of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, he will still visit Vietnam to pay his respects and meet with senior officials.  

In Tokyo and Manila, Blinken will join Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for 2+2 security talks with their counterparts.   

Blinken will also travel to Singapore and Mongolia to hold talks with senior officials there.

 
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In the Pacific Northwest, there is a marching group that has thrilled parade audiences for more than 70 years. The Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team has brought a sense of community and identity for generations of Chinese American girls. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya reports.
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New Delhi — The United Nations’ cultural agency rejected recommendations Wednesday to place Stonehenge on the list of world heritage sites in danger over concerns that Britain’s plans to build a nearby highway tunnel threaten the landscape around the prehistoric monument.

Stonehenge was built on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain in southern England in stages, starting 5,000 years ago, with the unique stone circle erected in the late Neolithic period about 2,500 B.C.

It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986 — an honor bestowed upon sites that have special cultural or physical significance.

UNESCO experts had recommended listing Stonehenge as “in danger” over the plans for highway development.

But at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, which maintains the list and oversees the conservation of the sites, members led by Kenya and Qatar said Britain’s plans to mitigate the effect on the site were sufficient and that it should not be added to the “in danger” list.

The highway project, which has been touted for decades and mired in legal challenges, is aimed at trying to ease traffic along a stretch of road prone to gridlock by moving the main highway underground and slightly farther away from the famous stone circle.

It has faced fierce opposition from local residents and archaeologists, as well as concern from UNESCO, over potential damage to the environment, wildlife and possible new archaeological finds.

Kenya, in amending the recommendation to list the site as in danger, focused on the fact that the main stone circle would be farther away from the road with the new construction, and not the experts’ assessment that the road project would significantly impact the greater site. It also noted that Britain had considered more than 50 proposals for the highway plan.

“What needs to be protected is not just the henge but the overall landscape of which the henge is a central focus,” the UNESCO experts had argued in their draft proposal, which was rejected.

“The main henge is a highly visible and well-known monument and the proposed tunnel would improve its immediate setting, but this monument has to be considered in its context, surrounded by and inextricably linked to a large number of prehistoric features, which together form an ancient landscape.”

After rejecting the proposal to list Stonehenge as in danger, the committee agreed to ask Britain for an updated report on the state of conservation of the property by December 2025.

UNESCO says a site’s inclusion on its List of World Heritage Sites in Danger is not punitive, but rather meant to draw international attention to the urgent need for conservation measures and “encourage corrective action.”

If issues are not rectified, sites face the possibility of being de-listed by UNESCO, though that is rare.
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RYE, New Hampshire — Two fishermen are safe after a whale crashed onto their boat, capsizing it off the New Hampshire shore, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. 

The incident occurred Tuesday near Odiorne Point State Park in Rye. The two men, who were thrown overboard, said they had seen the whale earlier and were trying to keep their distance. 

“He went under, he disappeared for a few minutes, and then the next thing we know, he just popped right up on our transom,” fisherman Ryland Kenney told WMUR-TV. 

The Coast Guard posted to social media platform X that they had received a mayday call stating that a 7-meter center console boat had turned over because of a whale breach. 

“The occupants were ejected from the vessel as the boat capsized,” the Coast Guard posted, adding that an urgent marine information broadcast was issued, and the Coast Guard Station Portsmouth Harbor was alerted. 

“A good Samaritan recovered both individuals from the water. No injuries were reported,” the Coast Guard posted. 

The rescuers were two young brothers. 

“I saw it come up, and I was just like, ‘Oh, it’s going to hit the boat,’” Wyatt Yager told the station. “It started to flip.” His brother, Colin Yager, caught what happened on his phone. 

The boat crew from Station Portsmouth reported that the whale appeared not to be injured. The incident was reported to the Center of Coastal Studies Marine Animal Hotline and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

The vessel has also been salvaged. 

The whale probably did not know the boat was there, said Sara Morris of the University of New Hampshire Shoals Marine Laboratory. 

“If you look at the video really carefully, you can see that the whale has its mouth open,” she told the station. “It looks like it’s lunge feeding and actually trying to catch fish.”
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Paris — Tennis star Coco Gauff will join LeBron James as a flag bearer for the U.S. Olympic team at Friday’s opening ceremony.

Gauff, the reigning U.S. Open champion, is set to make her Olympic debut at the Paris Games and will be the first tennis athlete to carry the U.S. flag. She and James were chosen by Team USA athletes.

“I mean, for me, the Olympics is a top priority. I would say equal to the Grand Slams. I wouldn’t put it above or below, just because I’ve never played before. This is my first time,” Gauff said earlier this year. “Obviously, I always want to do well, try to get a medal.”

Gauff and James, the 39-year-old leading scorer in NBA history, both compete in sports that are outside the traditional Olympic world and get attention year-round, not just every four years.

The 20-year-old Gauff made the American team for the Tokyo Games three years ago as a teenager but had to sit out those Olympics because she tested positive for COVID-19 right before she was supposed to fly to Japan.

Now Gauff, who is based in Florida, is a Grand Slam title winner in singles and doubles. She won her first major championship in New York in September, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the singles final of the U.S. Open, then added her first Grand Slam doubles trophy at the French Open this June alongside Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic.

The same clay courts at Roland Garros used for the French Open will be where matches are going to be held for the Paris Olympics. The draw to set the brackets is Thursday, and play begins on Saturday.

Gauff is seeded No. 2 in singles, matching her current WTA ranking behind No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland, and will be among the medal favorites.

She and her usual doubles partner, Jessica Pegula, are seeded No. 1 in women’s doubles. It’s possible Gauff could also be entered in mixed doubles, but those pairings have not been announced yet.

“I’m not putting too much pressure on it, because I really want to fully indulge in the experience,” Gauff said about her Olympics debut. “Hopefully I can have the experience multiple times in my lifetime, (but) I’ll treat it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
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Berlin, Germany — Forced to choose between its ambitious climate goals and a major loss of electric vehicle market share to China, the European Union opted to protect its carmakers. But analysts say the long-term effect on efforts to reduce greenhouse gases remains to be seen.

Provisional duties of up to 37.6% on Chinese-made EVs imposed by the EU earlier this month “might slow sales of EVs,” which are a key component of any plan to slow the rate of climate change, acknowledged Miranda Schreurs, professor at the Technical University of Munich, in an interview.

“It probably does have to do with concerns about the tariffs and also concerns about the [extent to which] Europe is really supporting the transition to EVs right now,” said Schreurs, who specializes in environment and climate policy, including energy transitions.

“That can have a negative impact if European consumers feel like the Green Deal is hurting them rather than helping them. … And many people are much more worried about inflation and their pockets … so there’s the question of what will the public accept?”

The EU imposed the new duties, which come on top of an existing 10% tariff, after accusing Beijing of offering “unfair subsidization” that threatened economic injury to Europe’s own electric vehicle makers. The bloc said China-made EVs were selling at prices 20% lower than those of their European counterparts.

Beijing retaliated last week with an anti-dumping probe into EU imports that singled out Danish, Dutch and Spanish pork firms.

Schreurs said the trade dispute reflects major changes in the global auto market based on growing awareness of the threat posed by climate change and the potential of electric vehicles to eliminate a major source of the gases that are heating the planet.

“China, which wasn’t a big international player in terms of automobile exports, has become the dominant player – the biggest player – in EV exports in the last several years,” she told VOA. “This is putting a lot of pressure on European manufacturers of automobiles.”

Boosted by government policies and subsidies, China’s BYD overtook Tesla to become the world’s top EV maker last year. Some projections say Chinese-made EVs could account for 15% to 25% of all such vehicles sold in the EU by next year.

Any slowdown in the sales of EVs will inevitably impact the continent’s so-called Green Deal, which aims to slash greenhouse gases in the transport sector, mainly by boosting the share of EVs. EU planning calls for emissions to be cut by 37.5% compared with 1990 levels by 2030, and for only zero-emission vehicles to be sold by 2035.

However, many analysts believe the tariffs will have only a modest effect on the rate of conversion to EVs, and Schreurs said a dampening of enthusiasm for EVs could prompt more people to switch to public transportation, which would do even more to cut emissions.

Wan-Hsin Liu, senior researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, told VOA the short-term price increase will be there, but “still far away from a price shock” that would deter consumers.

“Even due to these countervailing duties, Chinese [battery electric vehicle] producers will not just transfer the whole duty costs to consumers completely,” said Liu, whose research focuses on China and innovation.

Over the long term, she said, the price increase will still be manageable and other non-Chinese EV producers can make up for any reduction in sales from China.

Schreurs said China could also help itself by shifting more of its auto-making to Europe, where about 13.8 million people work in the EU automotive industry, including 3.5 million in direct and indirect manufacturing, data from the European Commission shows.

“If China is investing in Europe in a way that it’s creating jobs, it can also decrease tensions” with the EU, she said. “The support for [Chinese EVs] will be stronger both from the public and government officials.”

Several Chinese EV makers are moving in that direction. Chery Auto signed a joint venture with Spain’s EV Motors to open a manufacturing site in Catalonia, while BYD will build its first EV production base in Hungary.

Liu said a larger shift of that kind would not have to translate into fewer jobs in China, where officials have set a goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060.

“The market demand [for EVs] would only rise, so it doesn’t necessarily mean that [Chinese EV makers] build a factory in Europe and would then automatically close a factory in China,” she said. “These different kind of factories would serve different kinds of markets … so it does not mean green jobs in China will suffer.”

Schreur said both China and Europe need green jobs “and to do this in a way that also reduces the footprint tied to the manufacturing of cars.” Consequently, “perhaps it makes more sense that the prices of [China-made] cars are raised somewhat right now.”

The provisional tariffs remain subject to trade negotiations in November, and both Schreur and Liu believe the EU and China will be able to resolve some of their differences at that time. But Liu voiced some reservations.

“China currently perceives the EU’s investigation and decision on EVs and others as protectionist measures with the goal to protect solely the domestic industry,” she said. “China thinks that the responsibility for causing a potential trade war lies within the EU.”

In the end, she said, the outcome will depend on both sides’ willingness to compromise.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris heads to Indianapolis on Wednesday, marking one of her first public appearances since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed her as the Democratic Party’s nominee on Sunday.

Harris is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech at Zeta Phi Beta (ZPB) Sorority Inc.’s biennial convention in Indianapolis.

ZPB, founded in 1920 at Harris’ alma mater Howard University, is one of the nation’s largest historically Black sororities – social organizations with female-only memberships at colleges and universities whose purpose is to foster community, academic achievement and career development, among other things.

Earlier this month in Dallas, Texas, Harris spoke to more than 20,000 members and alumnae of her own sorority at Howard University, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., at its national convention.

Sorority figures play key roles in the group Win With Black Women, which organized a Zoom call with 44,000 attendees just hours after Biden endorsed Harris. The group said it raised more than $1.5 million for her campaign in just a few hours.

A similar effort by Win With Black Men raised more than $1 million, adding to the $100 million raised by the Harris campaign in less than 48 hours. This is in addition to money raised by political action committees separate from the campaign. The largest one, the Future Forward PAC, reported $150 million in commitments in the first 24 hours.

Sororities and fraternities

There are nine historically Black sororities and fraternities, their male equivalent, known as the “Divine Nine.”

Sororities and fraternities are among the most important networks in the African American community, said Steve Phillips, founder of the political media organization Democracy in Color, and author of several books on demographic shifts in the American electorate.

“Members are passionate, energetic and engaged throughout their entire lives,” he told VOA, so these pre-existing and highly involved groups can swiftly emerge as formidable campaign resources.

“We saw some of this with Obama in 2007 and 2008, and I expect it to be another order of magnitude fundraising and volunteering with Harris,” he said.

Sororities are pathways to another key resource – Black female celebrities.

These groups are actively recruiting notable figures and celebrities as honorary members, said Samantha N. Sheppard, associate professor and chair of the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University.

With Hollywood big names including Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, Jennifer Lewis and others pledging support for Harris, the “groundswell of Black women celebrity activism” has already begun, she told VOA.

Harris’ run for the nation’s top job has energized African American voters, a key Democratic constituency whose enthusiasm waned when Biden was on top of the ticket. However, amid the rampant racist and sexist attacks on Harris online, they are also bracing themselves.

“It’s critical for Black women with platforms to work together to rise above the misogynoir that Harris will face,” Sheppard said.

Attacks are already being launched at Harris for traveling to Indianapolis and declining to preside over Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, also happening Wednesday.

From Indianapolis, Harris heads to Houston, Texas, to speak in front of the American Federation of Teachers on Friday.
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