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MARSEILLE, France — French Olympic swimmer Florent Manaudou became the first Olympic torch carrier in France after the Olympic flame arrived in Marseille’s Old Port Wednesday on a majestic three-mast ship from Greece for the welcoming ceremony at sunset in the city’s Old Port. 

The ship sailed into Marseille’s old port with the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, echoing from the embankment and a French Air force flyover with planes first drawing the five Olympic rings and then the red-blue-white colors of the nation’s flag. 

The ship docked on the pontoon that reflects an athletics track and Manaudou carried the torch to mainland France as tens of thousands cheered and thousands of others waved from balconies and windows overlooking the festivities. 

“We can be proud,” said President Emmanuel Macron, who attended the ceremony to welcome the torch. 

“The flame is on French soil,” Macron said. “The games are coming to France and are entering the lives of the French people.” 

The torch was lit in Greece last month before it was officially handed to France. It left Athens aboard a ship named Belem, which was first used in 1896, and spent twelve days at sea. 

Paris 2024 Olympics Organizing Committee President Tony Estanguet said the return of the Olympic Games to France was cause for a “fantastic celebration.” 

“As a former athlete, I know how important the start of a competition is. That is why we chose Marseille, because it’s definitely one of the cities most in love with sports,” added Estanguet, a former Olympic canoeing star with gold medals from the 2000, 2004 and 2012 Games. 

Safety of visitors and residents has been a top priority for authorities in Marseille, France’s second largest city with nearly a million inhabitants. About 8,000 police officers have been deployed around the harbor. 

Thousands of firefighters and bomb disposal squads have been positioned around the city along with maritime police and anti-drone teams patrolling the city’s waters and its airspace. 

“It’s a monumental day and we have been working hard for visitors and residents of Marseille to enjoy this historical moment,” said Yannick Ohanessian, the city’s deputy mayor. 

The torch relay will start on Thursday in Marseille, before heading to Paris through iconic places across the country, from the world-famous Mont Saint-Michel to D-Day landing beaches in Normandy and the Versailles Palace. 

A heavy police and military presence was seen patrolling Marseille’s city center Tuesday, as a military helicopter flew over the Old Port, where a range of barriers have been set up. 

French Interior Ministry spokesperson Camille Chaize said officials were prepared for security threats including terrorism. 

“We’re employing various measures, notably the elite National Gendarmerie Intervention Group unit, which will be present in the torch relay from beginning to end,” she said. 

The Olympic cauldron will be lit after the Games’ opening ceremony that will take place on the River Seine on July 26. 

The cauldron will be lit at a location in Paris that is being kept top-secret until the day itself. Among reported options are such iconic spots as the Eiffel Tower and the Tuileries Gardens outside the Louvre Museum.
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LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was accused Wednesday of leading a “chaotic” government as another one of his Conservative lawmakers defected to the main opposition Labour Party ahead of a looming general election. 

In a stunning move just ahead of the weekly prime minister’s questions, Natalie Elphicke crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join the ranks of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which appears headed for power after 14 years. 

“We need to move on from the broken promises of Rishi Sunak’s tired and chaotic government,” said Elphicke, who represents the constituency of Dover in southern England, which is at the front line of migrant crossings from France. “Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division.” 

Elphicke is the second Conservative lawmaker to defect to Labour in two weeks,; Dan Poulter quit in anger over the government’s handling of the National Health Service. 

The defection of Elphicke is particularly surprising as she was widely considered to be on the right of the Conservative Party. She has been hugely critical of Labour in the past and Starmer himself but has recently been increasingly disapproving of the government’s approach to migrant crossings. 

“From small boats to biosecurity, Rishi Sunak’s government is failing to keep our borders safe and secure,” she said. 

Just under 30,000 people arrived in Britain in small boats in 2023, and Sunak has made reducing that number a key issue ahead of the election due this year, notably with his controversial plan to send some asylum-seekers to Rwanda. More than 8,000 have made the dangerous crossing already this year. 

Elphicke was elected in 2019, taking over the Dover seat that had been held by her then-husband Charlie, who was found guilty in 2020 of sexually assaulting two women and sentenced to two years in prison, of which he served half. 

Elphicke will not be standing in her Dover seat at the next election, although she said she will help the party with Labour’s housing policies. 

Starmer welcomed Elphicke to the Labour benches as well as Chris Webb, the party’s new lawmaker in Blackpool South in northwest England following his big victory in a special election Thursday. 

The Labour Party’s head reiterated his call for Sunak to immediately call for a general election, saying the Conservatives cannot carry on when even a lawmaker at the forefront of the small-boats crisis — meaning Elphicke — said Sunak “cannot be trusted with our borders.” 

The date of the general election rests in the hands of the prime minister. It must take place by January, and Sunak has repeatedly said his “working assumption” was that it would take place in the second half of 2024. 

Last week, the Conservatives suffered a historic drubbing in local elections, with nearly half of its candidates losing, while Labour made gains and won most of the key mayoral races it fought, including in London. 

Particularly encouraging for Labour was winning in areas that voted for Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2016 and where it was crushed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the general election in 2019. 

Elphicke’s defection may help Labour deflect Conservative attacks during the election that the opposition party may seek to reverse Brexit. In her statement Wednesday, she said Labour “has accepted Brexit and its economic policies.” 

Her defection has not only raised eyebrows within the Conservative Party. 

The left-wing Labour grouping, Momentum, said that Elphicke has “consistently demonized refugees and aid groups” and that she “should have no place in a Labour Party committed to progressive values and working-class people.” 
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Geneva — United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Tuesday condemned Russia’s brutal crackdown on journalists, which he says has been increasing since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

“The continuous attacks on free speech and the criminalization of independent journalism in Russia are very troubling,” Türk said in a prepared statement that called for the release of journalists detained “solely for doing their jobs.” 

The U.N. human rights office says the number of imprisoned journalists in Russia has reached an all-time high since Moscow began its war of aggression in Ukraine, noting that at least 30 journalists are currently detained on a variety of criminal charges. 

The charges include terrorism, extremism, spying, treason, extortion, violating the provisions of the law on foreign agents, inciting mass disturbances, illegal possession of explosives and illegal possession of drugs. 

Türk, who expressed concern about the frequent use “of the broad legislative framework to combat terrorism and extremism,” called on Russian authorities to amend the legislation in compliance “with international human rights law.” 

U.N. officials report 12 of the 30 jailed reporters are serving sentences ranging from five-and-a-half to 22 years in prison. 

“Since March, at least seven journalists have faced administrative or criminal charges,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the high commissioner, told journalists Tuesday in Geneva. 

She observed that all seven are Russian journalists who have faced the charges “for criticism of Russia’s actions in Ukraine or for alleged links to the late opposition politician Alexey Navalny, and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK),” which Russia labeled extremist in 2021. 

According to the 2024 World Press Freedom Index produced by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, Russia ranked 162nd out of 180 countries. Commenting on the designation, authors of the annual report said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who “was unsurprisingly reelected in 2024, continues to wage a war in Ukraine” that “has had a big impact on the media ecosystem and journalists’ safety.” 

The latest report by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists finds “Russia holds a disproportionate number of foreign reporters in its jails,” noting that 12 of the 17 foreign nationals currently detained worldwide “are held by Russia.” 

Two are U.S. citizens. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been held in pre-trial detention by Russia since March 2023 on charges of espionage, while Alsu Kurmasheva of VOA sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been detained since October 2023 for failing to register as a “foreign agent.” Both detainees and their employers vehemently reject the charges as bogus and politically motivated. 

The 10 other foreign journalists imprisoned by Russia are from Ukraine, including five Crimean Tatars. 

“Russia is a place where it is very risky to be a journalist these days if you are reporting on issues that are very sensitive to the authorities,” Shamdasani said. “What is worrying us is the lack of transparency. 

“The fact that independent journalists are being cracked down on leads to a level of uncertainty and facilitates a climate of misinformation, disinformation, chaos and panic for people who do not know what their rights are in these circumstances,” she said. 

U.N. human rights chief Türk is calling for an immediate end “to the intense crackdown on journalists’ independent work,” describing the right to inform as a critical “component of the right to freedom of expression [that] needs to be upheld.” 

“Journalists should be able to work in a safe environment without fear of reprisals in line with Russia’s international human rights obligations,” he said.
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DETROIT — Severe storms barreled through the Midwest early Wednesday, a day after two reported tornadoes struck one Michigan city and destroyed homes and commercial buildings, including a FedEx facility. 

Tornadoes were first reported after dark Tuesday in parts of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, while portions of Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri were also under a tornado watch, according to the National Weather Service. The storms came a day after a deadly twister ripped through an Oklahoma town. 

As the storms raged on in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday, the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh warned that a tornado in northeastern Ohio could cross into Pennsylvania. Parts of West Virginia were also under a tornado warning. 

Hancock County Schools in West Virginia closed schools Wednesday because of “extensive overnight weather issues” in the county. News outlets reported damaged buildings and power outages. 

Hours earlier in southwestern Michigan, two reported tornadoes blitzed the city of Portage near Kalamazoo on Tuesday night, destroying homes and commercial buildings, including a FedEx facility that was ripped apart. 

No serious injuries were immediately reported, but city officials said in a news release that the twisters knocked out power to more than 20,000 people. Most of them would be without power until late Wednesday, city officials said. 

At one point, about 50 people were trapped inside the FedEx facility because of downed power lines. But company spokesperson Shannon Davis said late Tuesday that “all team members are safe and accounted for.” 

More than 30,000 customers were without power in Michigan early Wednesday, and an additional 10,000 in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us. 

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for four counties. 

“My heart goes out to all those impacted by tonight’s severe weather in southwest Michigan,” Whitmer said in a message on social media. “State and local emergency teams are on the ground and working together to assist Michiganders.” 

National Weather Service crews were working Wednesday to survey storm damage in several counties in Michigan’s southwest Lower Peninsula to determine whether tornadoes touched down in those areas, including the two reported Tuesday night in the city of Portage, said meteorologist Mike Sutton with the weather service’s Grand Rapids office. 

He said the Grand Rapids office had received a total of 11 reports of tornadoes from storm spotters, emergency managers and the public from late Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night, but as of 8 a.m. Wednesday, it had not confirmed any tornado touchdowns. 

Sutton said it could be a couple days before the storm surveys are completed and he stressed that some of the tornado reports could be duplicate reports passed along by people who saw the same storm. 

“It’s quite possible those are multiple reports from the same tornado. The actual number of tornadoes may be lower depending on what they find when they’re out surveying,” he said. 

Tuesday’s storms came a day after parts of the central United States were battered by heavy rain, strong winds, hail and twisters. Both the Plains and Midwest have been hammered by tornadoes this spring. 

Across the U.S., the entire week is looking stormy. The Midwest and the South are expected to get the brunt of the bad weather through the rest of the week, including in Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati — cities where more than 21 million people live. It should be clear over the weekend. 

Oklahoma’s recent twisters

On Monday night, a deadly twister in Oklahoma tore through the 1,000-person town of Barnsdall. At least one person was killed. and another was missing. Dozens of homes were destroyed. 

Aerial videos showed homes reduced to piles of rubble and others with roofs torn off. The twister tossed vehicles, downed power lines and stripped limbs and bark from trees across the town. A 160-acre (65-hectare) wax manufacturing facility in the community also sustained heavy damage. 

It was the second tornado to hit Barnsdall in five weeks — a twister on April 1 with maximum wind speeds of 90 to 100 mph (145 to 161 kph) damaged homes and blew down trees and power poles. 

At the Hampton Inn in nearby Bartlesville, several splintered two-by-fours were driven into the building. Chunks of insulation, twisted metal and other debris were scattered over the lawn, and vehicles in the parking lot were heavily damaged, with blown-out windows. 

Hotel guest Matthew Macedo said he was ushered into a laundry room to wait out the storm. 

“When the impact occurred, it was incredibly sudden,” he said. 

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who toured the twister’s damage Tuesday, said it was rated by weather researchers as a violent tornado with winds reaching up to 200 mph (322 kph). Stitt said he and legislative leaders have agreed to set aside $45 million in this year’s budget to help storm-damaged communities. 

Areas in Oklahoma, including Sulphur and Holdenville, are still recovering from a tornado that killed four and left thousands without power late last month. 
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ATLANTA — A Georgia appeals court on Wednesday agreed to review a lower court ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to continue to prosecute the election interference case she brought against former President Donald Trump.

Trump and some other defendants in the case had tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, saying her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals.

That intermediate appeals court agreed on Wednesday to take up the case. Once it rules, the losing side could ask the Georgia Supreme Court to consider an appeal.

The appeals court’s decision to consider the case seems likely to cause a delay in a case and further reduce the possibility that it will get to trial before the November general election, when Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee for president.

In his order, McAfee said he planned to continue to address other pretrial motions “regardless of whether the petition is granted … and even if any subsequent appeal is expedited by the appellate court.” But Trump and the others could ask the Court of Appeals to stay the case while the appeal is pending.
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration’s apparent willingness to engage North Korea is causing a rare public rift with one of Washington’s key allies in Asia over how to achieve Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

Last week, the two allies, on separate occasions, showed differences about whether to consider “interim steps” toward North Korea’s complete denuclearization.

South Korean national security adviser Chang Ho-jin said, “U.S. senior officials confirmed several times that there are no such thing as interim steps” toward denuclearization. He made the remarks in an interview with South Korean media outlet KBS, aired on April 27.

A U.S. National Security Council spokesperson confirmed in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on April 30 that “by saying that the United States is willing to consider interim steps, we are making clear that we recognize that building trust with the DPRK and making progress toward denuclearization will take time.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is North Korea’s official name.

In response to the NSC spokesperson’s comments, a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson told VOA Korean on May 1 that Chang’s remarks “reaffirm that the U.S. will not put aside complete denuclearization while it settles for a stopgap measure limiting [negotiations] to a nuclear freeze in return for sanctions relief.”

Taking interim steps toward denuclearization involves reciprocal concessions or corresponding measures that both sides are willing to make to reach that goal.

Interim steps toward denuclearization are not a new approach. The approach was tried and failed by the former Clinton and George W. Bush administrations when North Korea was engaged in negotiations with the U.S.

In March of this year, senior U.S. officials expressed Washington’s interest in considering “interim steps” amid talks that remained stalled with Pyongyang since October 2019.

A State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean in April that it made multiple attempts to communicate with North Korean officials, but that Pyongyang has not shown interest in engaging.

Experts said Seoul is concerned that Washington’s mention of interim steps and measures that could be included in those steps, especially threat reduction, could hinder Pyongyang from making a commitment toward complete denuclearization in future negotiations.

Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair in Korea Studies at Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies, said, “Seoul prefers not to engage in any diplomatic negotiations without a DPRK commitment to denuclearization and wants to appear resolute.”

“Washington has signaled to North Korea that it’s willing to be more flexible when it comes to restarting diplomatic engagement with North Korea. Seoul may not want to give the appearance of that flexibility so is perhaps denying any legitimacy behind an ‘interim steps’ approach,” he added.

Seoul has taken a tough stance on North Korea under President Yoon Suk Yeol since he took office two years ago by focusing on deterrence and alignment with Washington and U.S.-led trilateral security cooperation with Japan.

Evans Revere, a State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, said some critics and officials in Seoul and Tokyo are worried that the U.S. will focus on other goals Washington mentioned such as confidence building and tension reduction rather than on denuclearization.

“There is also concern that Washington may be prepared to engage in arms control talks with Pyongyang — a move that would generate deep concern among U.S. allies, in large part because it would effectively accept North Korea’s nuclear arsenal as permanent,” he said.

Talks over arms control or “nuclear freeze” that Seoul said it is concerned about or “threat reduction” or “risk reduction” mentioned by U.S. officials in March — which could be included in the interim steps — are considered equivalent to accepting North Korea as a nuclear state and opposed by some officials and analysts.

At an event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on March 3, Mira Rapp-Hooper, senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the National Security Council, said the U.S. will discuss threat reduction with North Korea as it considers interim steps on the “pathway to denuclearization.”

Also at an event by CSIS on March 18, Jung Pak, a U.S. senior official for North Korea, said Washington wants North Korea to take risk reduction steps and discuss sanctions and confidence-building measures.  

Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea chair at CSIS, however, said that Rapp-Hooper’s reference to “the formulation of interim measures to reduce the threat on the peninsula” in March “reflects the same pragmatic view that any negotiation has to start at step 1 — whether you call that interim measures or initial denuclearization.”

“As a former negotiator, I can say that any pragmatic implementation of denuclearization would have to include such steps, which I do not think would represent de facto acceptance of DPRK nuclear status — that is neither Washington, nor Seoul’s policy,” he said.

Cha formerly served as deputy head of delegation for the U.S. at six-party denuclearization talks.
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Sapporo, Japan — Friction between Japan and Russia will likely escalate amidst the burgeoning Ukraine war, with the decades-long land conflicts showing no sign of thawing.

The Kremlin recently banned non-Russian vessels from waters near the Kuril Islands – known in Japan as the Northern Territories – currently occupied by Russia but claimed by Japan.

Tokyo saw the move as part of a series of Moscow threats after the recent security alliance between the United States and Japan.

There will be further retaliation from Moscow against Japan, according to James DJ Brown, professor of political science at Japan’s Temple University.

“The Putin regime feels an obligation to retaliate against what it regards as unfriendly actions by Japan,” Brown told VOA News. “Every time Tokyo does something more to assist Ukraine or to strengthen military ties with the United States, Moscow takes some measures to punish Japan.”

He said that as Japan is likely to introduce further sanctions to support Kyiv, Moscow’s retaliation is “all but guaranteed.”

The retaliatory measures aren’t just targeting Tokyo. A Russian man residing in the Kuril Islands was warned in March by a Russian court over his remarks to Japanese media that the territory had belonged to Japan in the past.

Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would visit the Kuril Islands, putting a damper on hopes for negotiations over sovereignty that both countries have attempted for decades.

Land disputes run deep

Russia and Japan’s competing claims over the four islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaido – Japan’s second-largest island – date back to at least the 19th century. Near the end of WWII, the then Soviet Union started fully occupying the Kuril Islands.

Japan claimed that the Soviet Union incorporated them “without any legal grounds” and refused to sign a peace treaty. Tokyo said about 17,000 Japanese residents were deported from the islands. The Russian public, Brown said, view the Kuril Islands as reward for the sacrifices of the Soviet people during the war.

The two countries have held talks off and on for decades to reach an agreement but to no avail.  

The conflict eased in 2016, when the two countries agreed on joint economic activities including tourism projects on the islands, as well as visa-free visits for Japanese citizens.

Two years later, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed a split of the four islands, returning two islands to Japan, but Putin rejected it. Akihiro Iwashita, professor of the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Japan’s Hokkaido University, called this Putin’s “failed diplomacy” toward Japan that eventually led to Tokyo taking a more hardline approach against Moscow.

“If Putin had shown goodwill to Japan, negotiating with Shinzo Abe for the peace treaty, Japan would not have taken a critical position over the Ukraine war,” Iwashita told VOA News. “Remember Japan’s hesitation to sanction Russia after its 2014 aggression against Ukraine? Japan now does not need to restrain its policy towards Russia.”

Tensions over the Ukraine war

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow put all peace treaty talks with Japan on hold and suspended the previously agreed economic activities and visa-free visits to the islands for Japanese citizens. This followed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s siding with Ukraine in the war, with Kishida calling the suspension “extremely unjust.”

Japan has been providing assistance to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, including supplying Patriot air defense systems last year. Kishida was the first Japanese leader to visit an active war zone, to show solidarity with Ukraine and the U.S.

Moscow warned of “grave consequences” for its ties with Tokyo. That did not stop Japan from pledging $4.5 billion in aid to war-torn Ukraine last December, including $1 billion for humanitarian purposes.

Japan’s aid to Ukraine has affected residents of Hokkaido. A survey conducted by Hokkaido authorities and the Hokkaido Shimbun last year showed that over half of the respondents near the Russia-Japan border in the north felt a negative effect of the Ukraine war on local life, including reduction in fishing activities and trade, and human contacts.

In October last year, Russia banned all seafood imports from Japan, citing Tokyo’s release of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

“Moscow used the pretense of the threat of radiation from treatment water from the Fukushima plant. In reality, it was an attempt by Moscow to punish Japan for its support for Ukraine,” Brown said.

In the survey, many also said they cannot foresee a solution for the northern territories, but a majority said they support Tokyo’s policy against Russia.

Both experts said Russia does not currently pose a military threat to Japan. Brown said, “the Russian military is present on the disputed islands, but their role is to defend the Sea of Okhotsk, which is important as a bastion for Russian nuclear submarines. It does not have the capabilities on the islands to launch an amphibious assault on Hokkaido.”

Peace treaty negotiations are expected to continue to be frozen for the foreseeable future, despite Kishida’s calls for their resumption in February this year.

“Kishida is displaying diplomatic goodwill towards Russia, but with no expectations of it being reciprocated…There is little room to fill the interest gap between the two,” said Iwashita.

He added that Russia’s pressure on Japan “will not lead to any results.”
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WASHINGTON — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation must make sweeping changes to address widespread sexual harassment and other misconduct, according to an independent report released on Tuesday that raises questions about the future of the banking regulator’s leadership.

The report, prompted by a Wall Street Journal investigation, cited accounts from more than 500 people, including some who alleged FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg had engaged in bullying and verbal abuse.

Overall, the report by law firm Cleary Gottlieb paints a picture of an agency at which sexual harassment, racial discrimination and bullying were pervasive at every level and tolerated by senior leaders for years, while complaints about misconduct were met with retaliation.

“For far too many employees and for far too long, the FDIC has failed to provide a workplace safe from sexual harassment, discrimination, and other interpersonal misconduct,” the report said, adding that those accused of misconduct were frequently reassigned new roles.

Underscoring the agency’s toxic culture, officials tasked with addressing the problems exposed by the WSJ reports were themselves the subject of misconduct claims, the Cleary Gottlieb report found.

The findings sparked renewed calls for the ouster of Gruenberg, a Democrat who has been a senior leader at the agency for nearly two decades.

Representative Patrick McHenry, a Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, called for Gruenberg’s resignation following the report, saying it made clear the agency needs new leadership.

“The FDIC needs to be fixed. The women and men who work there deserve better,” Sherrod Brown, chair of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “Chair Gruenberg must accept responsibility and must immediately work to make fundamental changes to the agency and its culture.”

Some employees described Gruenberg as “harsh” and “aggressive,” as well as prone to losing his temper, the report said. In speaking with investigators, Gruenberg said he never recalled acting inappropriately. The report said some employees reported positive interactions with him and saw his nature as more “prosecutorial.”

In a statement to staff, Gruenberg said the report was “sobering” and he vowed to implement its recommendations.

He said he was ultimately responsible for everything that happened at the agency and apologized for any shortcomings. “I again want to express how very sorry I am,” he added.

The report recommends the appointment of new officials devoted to changing the FDIC’s culture and hiring an independent third party to assist in the transition, although it did not consider whether top leaders should resign.

It also called on the agency to establish an anonymous hotline to report misconduct and abuse, develop a more timely and transparent process for handling complaints, and take steps to ensure victims are protected and supported.

While the report found that Gruenberg’s aggressive conduct was not a root cause of the more severe issues at the agency, it was skeptical of his ability to oversee the necessary dramatic overhaul.

“As the FDIC faces a crisis relating to its workplace culture, Chairman Gruenberg’s reputation raises questions about the credibility of the leadership’s response to the crisis and the ‘moral authority’ to lead a cultural transformation,” the report stated.

The departure of Gruenberg, who was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, could imperil the administration’s efforts to impose stricter financial rules, including a pending regulatory proposal on bank capital requirements, which has sparked a backlash from Republicans and industry representatives.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

If Gruenberg steps down or is removed, agency bylaws stipulate that FDIC Vice Chair Travis Hill, a Republican, take over, and the agency’s board would be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has been holding up certain Boeing-made arms shipments to Israel, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, in what two of them said was an apparent political message to the close U.S. ally.

The shipments, which have been delayed for at least two weeks, involved Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which convert dumb bombs into precision-guided ones, as well as Small Diameter Bombs.

The sources did not elaborate further, including on the political nature of the holdups. But they come at a time when Washington is publicly pressuring Israel to postpone its planned offensive in Rafah until after it has taken steps to avert civilian casualties.

The White House and Pentagon declined comment. The news of a delayed arms shipment was first reported by Axios over the weekend and Politico first reported on the types of arms delayed and the reasoning on Tuesday.

Without addressing whether there had been a holdup in arms shipments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reaffirmed that Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security was “ironclad.”

Still, when asked about the reports on the arms holdups, she added: “Two things could be true, in the sense of having those conversations, tough, direct conversations with our counterparts in Israel … in making sure citizens lives are protected … and getting that commitment.”

The Pentagon said on Monday that there had not been a policy decision to withhold arms from Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally.

Still, the delays appeared to be the first since Biden’s administration offered its full support to Israel following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 others were abducted. About 133 of them are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas has led to a seven-month-long military campaign that has killed a total of 34,789 Palestinians, most of them civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The conflict has also left many of Gaza’s 2.3 million people on the brink of starvation and sparked protests in the U.S. demanding that universities and Biden withdraw support for Israel – including the provision of weaponry.

A senior Israeli official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, did not confirm any specific holdup in arms supplies but appeared to take the reports in stride: “As the prime minister has already said, if we have to fight with our fingernails, then we’ll do what we have to do.”
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PENTAGON — The U.S. Army has confirmed that a U.S. soldier was arrested last week during an unauthorized visit to the Russian far eastern port city of Vladivostok, one of two recently detained Americans in Russia.

Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said Tuesday Staff Sergeant Gordon C. Black had been stationed in South Korea and signed out on permanent change of station leave on April 10 en route to Fort Cavazos, Texas. Instead of returning to the continental United States, Black flew through China to Vladivostok for “personal reasons.”

“Black did not request official clearance, and [the Department of Defense] did not authorize his travel to China and Russia, Smith added. 

U.S. officials told VOA he appeared to have traveled to Russia to see a woman whom he was romantically involved with.

Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Tuesday the Army is investigating the incident and that any leave to Russia was “strictly prohibited,” according to the Department of Defense’s foreign clearance guide.

The White House said on Tuesday it confirmed “two separate cases” of U.S. citizens being detained in Russia, without identifying the second detainee.

Russian officials identified the second American as William Russell Nycum. He was detained 10 days ago in Moscow on petty hooliganism and alcohol charges, according to the Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti.

“The State Department is actively seeking consular access to both individuals, neither of whom are in Russia on behalf or in affiliation with the U.S. government,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

A Russian Ministry of Interior official informed the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on May 3 that Black was arrested a day earlier in Vladivostok for theft of personal property. Smith said the Army has no further information about the charge at this time and that Black will remain in a pretrial detention facility until his next hearing. 

According to RFE/RL a TikTok account of Black’s romantic partner, Vladivostok native Aleksandra Vashchuk, contains numerous videos of the couple together in South Korea. In one video, Black is wearing his U.S. Army fatigues and kisses the camera of a woman, presumably Vashchuk, as she speaks in Russian.

RFE/RL says Vashchuk refers to Black as her husband and affectionately as “pindos,” a Russian slang word for Americans that roughly translates to “Yankee punk.”

The Associated Press reports that unnamed officials say Black is accused of stealing from his “girlfriend.”

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Michael McCaul, said he is “deeply concerned” by reports of the detainment.

“Putin has a long history of holding American citizens hostage,” McCaul said in a post shared on X. “A warning to all Americans — as the State Department has said, it is not safe to travel to Russia.”

Among those being held are journalists Alsu Kurmasheva of RFE/RL and Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal, who have been detained on charges that they, their employers and their supporters reject as politically motivated. 

Also being held is Paul Whelan, who in 2020 was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges, which he and the U.S. government have repeatedly rejected.
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Vienna — After “frank” discussions in France where President Emmanuel Macron pressed him on Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade disputes and human rights, China’s President Xi Jinping heads Tuesday to meet more pro-Beijing governments in Serbia and Hungary. 

Both countries have developed close ties with China and Russia under Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. 

China has been investing billions in both countries, with projects ranging from factories and mining to electric vehicles and a railway to connect their capitals — Belgrade and Budapest. 

China is both Hungary and Serbia’s largest trading partner outside the European Union.    

Xi arrives in Serbia for the 25th anniversary of the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. The U.S. apologized for what it called a “mistaken” bombing that killed three Chinese nationals and injured 20.

Xi is expected to pay tribute to those killed at the site, which was turned into a Chinese cultural center. 

Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, told VOA, “Xi will probably try to stress the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] role in supporting stability and maybe suggest but not openly accuse the United States of being destabilizing and unnecessarily aggressive.”

But analysts say Xi’s visits to Serbia and Hungary also reflect Beijing’s limitations amid the ups and downs in China-EU relations.

Francesco Sisci, an Italian sinologist, told VOA, “It’s interesting that … China didn’t manage to secure more significant countries for Xi’s visit to Europe. It seems that China is having greater difficulties in its ties with European countries, and it has good ties with two governments who have also good ties with Moscow. That is — Europe is moving faster away from China as it sees it too close to Moscow.”

Like Beijing, both Serbia and Hungary have spoken against sanctions by the U.S. and EU on Moscow over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, though Hungary has voted for them. 

Orban, despite leading a nation that is both a member of the EU and NATO, has friendly relations with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and held talks with him on the sidelines of a forum in Beijing in October. Hungary buys most of its fuel from Russia and, unlike other EU members, has shown no interest in stopping. Serbia is a candidate to join the EU. 

During the third Belt and Road International Cooperation Summit Forum, Xi also met with Orbán, the only EU leader who attended.

Dragana Mitrovic, a political science professor at the University of Belgrade, says those relations have sparked tensions with Hungary’s partners in the West.    

“In this moment of tense geopolitical competition and measuring economic and overall cooperation by strategic gains and losses, Hungary will continue to be under pressure from Brussels and Washington when pursuing cooperation with China,” she said to VOA.

While Hungary has benefited from billions in EU aid, Mitrovic notes Hungary is also one of the world’s biggest recipients of Chinese foreign investment.  

China’s BYD, which last year sold more electric vehicles than Tesla, plans to build its first plant in Europe in Hungary. By building cars inside the EU, Beijing could avoid the threat of tariffs on electric cars imported from China. 

  Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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In the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both using artificial intelligence to attract voters. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns reports on machine learning in this U.S. election.
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LONDON — Chinese President Xi Jinping offered few concessions to his counterpart and host Emmanuel Macron as he wrapped up a two-day visit to France on Tuesday evening. Both presidents are seeking to mend ties on Xi’s first trip to Europe in five years, after relations were soured by trade disputes and Beijing’s support for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

Macron invited Xi high into the Pyrenees Mountains, the home region of the French president’s maternal grandmother. Beneath snowy peaks shrouded in fog, the two leaders and their wives watched traditional dancers before dining on locally produced ham, lamb, cheese and blueberry pie.

French officials said the mountain trip on Tuesday would provide a chance for less- formal one-on-one discussions after the pomp and ceremony of Xi’s official state welcome in Paris on Monday.

Relations have worsened significantly since Xi last visited the region in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. Europe accuses Beijing of subsidizing industries that are undercutting its own companies in areas such as electric vehicles — but Macron told his Chinese guests that the European Union is not seeking to cut economic ties.

“Our shared objective is to continue our relationship,” Macron told delegates Monday at the Franco-Chinese Business Council in Paris. “There is no logic in decoupling from China. It’s a desire to preserve our national security, just as you do for your own. It’s a desire for mutual respect and understanding, and a desire to continue to open up trade, but to ensure that it is fully fair at all times, whether in terms of tariffs, aid or access to markets.”

China’s response

Xi made no immediate concessions, said analyst Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies.

“Xi Jinping does not feel that China has an overcapacity issue. And he feels that the European position on Chinese EVs, for example, is unreasonable. But then of course he is also trying to engage with the French and potentially having a leading Chinese car manufacturer setting up facilities in France, as a kind of incentive to persuade that maybe it’s in France’s interest to engage with China and welcome Chinese EVs,” Tsang told VOA.

The trade relationship is tilted in Beijing’s favor, according to Nicholas Bequelin, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

China “has a major export economy towards Europe. The trade deficit in Europe is huge and growing. The de-risking or anti-subsidy policies that the European Union wants to put in place will take a lot of time — and because they affect the different countries in the European Union differently, it is very difficult to get to an agreement,” Bequelin said.

Russia threat

Europe faces the more pressing security threat of Russia, as the Kremlin’s forces slowly advance in eastern Ukraine. China has given Moscow diplomatic and economic support, despite Western appeals for Beijing to help end the illegal invasion.

Xi declared a “no limits” partnership when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing in February 2022, just days before the Kremlin’s tanks rolled across the Ukrainian frontier.

A recent U.S. assessment concluded that China is providing vital components such as machine tools and microelectronics that Russia is using to make weapons. Last year, trade between China and Russia hit a record $240 billion.

Speaking in Paris Monday, Xi rejected European accusations that China was aiding Russia’s war.

“China is neither the creator of the crisis, nor a party, a participant of the war. However, we didn’t just watch the fire burning across the river but have been playing an active role in achieving peace,” Xi told reporters.

Europe’s message

China’s claim is demonstrably false — and European leaders must take a tougher line, said analyst Igor Merheim-Eyre, a policy adviser at the European Parliament and research fellow at the University of Kent.

“We’ve already had [German] Chancellor Olaf Scholz, we’ve had Macron, we’ve had Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, we have [EU Commission] President [Ursula] von der Leyen, all making trips to Beijing and repeating the same message: that China should not be supporting Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. And in those two years, I see no change,” Merheim-Eyre told VOA.

“What they’ve really failed at is spelling out to Xi Jinping what will be the cost of China supporting Russia’s war of aggression — which it clearly is. I mean if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t already have four Chinese companies on the EU sanction list. And the circumventions are much broader than that,” he said.

Costs for China

Europe should make the costs clear, said analyst Tsang, because China’s “policy has always been one of declaring neutrality, supporting Putin and refusing to pay a price for that.”

Sanctioning Chinese companies that are supplying Russia’s military would likely be effective, he said. “For Xi Jinping, the important thing is that he stays in power, and that means he has to keep the Chinese economy on an even keel. Supporting Putin is a desirable thing — but fundamentally staying in power overrides the aspirational goal of undermining U.S. global preeminence and leadership.” Tsang said.

“Shared interest”

Von der Leyen on Monday urged Beijing to help end the war. “We agree that Europe and China have a shared interest in peace and security. We count on China to use all its influence on Russia to end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” she said in a recorded video address.

But European leaders should be more realistic about Beijing’s ambitions, argued analyst Merheim-Eyre.

“I’m looking at my world map, and I’m trying to see where exactly this common interest lies. Because wherever I look, from Africa to the South China Sea to Ukraine, China is playing a destructive role, and I do not see common areas of interest in these matters.”

After visiting France, Xi was headed Tuesday for Serbia, a key Balkan partner in Beijing’s Belt and Road investment program. On Wednesday, Xi is due to travel to Hungary, his closest European ally and a longtime thorn in the side of EU unity on Russia and China policy.

VOA’s Mandarin Service contributed to this story.
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The US and Turkey have resumed security cooperation talks, and analysts say Turkish forces are poised to fill a vacuum should American forces pull out of Syria. Pentagon officials say there are no plans for a withdrawal, but analysts point to signs it may happen. Meanwhile, the speculation is causing concern among Kurdish forces in Syria. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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BEIRUT — The United States has repatriated 11 of its citizens from sprawling camps in northeastern Syria that house tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State militants, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.

The repatriation was the largest Washington has carried out from the camps to date, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Five of the 11 citizens brought back were children, and one non-U.S. citizen child — the 9-year-old sibling of one of the other children — was also brought with them.

As part of the same operation, the U.S. facilitated the repatriation of 11 other camp residents, eight of them children, to Canada, the Netherlands and Finland, the statement said.

Although the pace of repatriations has picked up — neighboring Iraq recently returned hundreds of its citizens — many countries remain reluctant to bring back citizens from the al Hol and al Roj camps, which now hold about 30,000 people from more than 60 countries, most of them children.

The camps are run by local authorities affiliated with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF and its allies, including U.S.-led coalition forces, defeated the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019, ending its self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” that had ruled over a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.

Human rights groups have regularly reported on what they describe as inhumane living conditions and abuses in the camps and in detention centers where suspected Islamic State members are housed.

“The only durable solution to the humanitarian and security crisis” in the facilities “is for countries to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and where appropriate, ensure accountability for wrongdoing,” Blinken said in the statement.
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Amsterdam — German police on Tuesday broke up a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University earlier in the day, the latest such action by authorities as protests that have roiled campuses in the United States spread across Europe.

The protesters had put up about 20 tents and formed a human chain around the tents. Most had covered their faces with medical masks and had draped kufiyah scarves around their heads, shouting slogans such as “Viva, viva Palestina.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Dutch police arrested about 125 activists as they broke up a similar pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam.

In Berlin, police called on the students via loudspeakers to leave the campus. Police could also be seen carrying some students away and some scuffles erupted between police officers and protesters.

Police used pepper spray against some of the protesters. The school’s administrators said in a statement that the protesters had rejected any kind of dialogue and they had therefore called in police to clear the campus.

“This form of protest is not geared towards dialogue. An occupation is not acceptable on the FU Berlin campus,” university president Guenter Ziegler said. FU is the abbreviation for Free University. “We are available for academic dialog — but not in this way.”

The administrators said some protesters attempted to enter rooms and lecture halls at Free University in order to occupy them. The protest organizers, which say they are made up of students from various Berlin universities and other individuals, had called on other students and professors to take part in the action, the university statement said.

In recent days, students have held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France and Britain, following earlier protests at U.S. campuses.

Amsterdam police said on the social media platform X that their action was “necessary to restore order” after protests turned violent. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Video from the scene aired by national broadcaster NOS shows police using a mechanical digger to push down barricades and officers with batons and shields moving in, beating some of the protesters and pulling down tents. Protesters had formed barricades from wooden pallets and bicycles, NOS reported.

The demonstrators occupied a small island at the university son Monday, calling for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza.

After clearing the Amsterdam protest by early afternoon Tuesday, police closed off the area by metal fences. Students sat along the banks of a nearby canal. The school said in a statement that police ended the demonstration at its Roeterseiland campus overnight Tuesday “due to public order and safety concerns.”

“The war between Israel and Hamas is having a major impact on individual students and staff,” it said. “We share the anger and bewilderment over the war, and we understand that there are protests over it. We stress that within the university, dialogue about it is the only answer.”

In Finland, dozens of protesters from the Students for Palestine solidarity group set up an encampment outside the main building at the University of Helsinki, saying they would stay there until the university, which is Finland’s largest academic institution, cuts academic ties with Israeli universities.

In Denmark, students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Copenhagen, erecting about 45 tents outside the campus of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The university said students can protest but called on them to respect the rules on campus grounds.

“Seek dialogue, not conflict and make room for perspectives other than your own,” the administrators said on X.

The administration “cannot and must not express an opinion on behalf of university employees and students about political matters, including about the ongoing conflict” in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the statement said.

On their Facebook page, members of the activist group Students Against the Occupation said their attempts to talk to the administration over the past two years about withdrawing the school’s investments from companies with ties to activities in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories have been in vain.

“We can no longer be satisfied with cautious dialogue that does not lead to concrete action,” the group said.

In Italy, students at the University of Bologna, one of the world’s oldest universities, set up a tent encampment over the weekend to demand an end to the war in Gaza as Israel prepared an offensive in Rafah, despite pleas from its Western allies against it. Groups of students organized similar protests in Rome and Naples, which were largely peaceful.

More than a dozen tents were set up in a piazza named for a university student who fought against fascist rule during World War II. Some were decorated with Palestinian flags and a banner read “Student Intefadeh,” or “Student Uprising.”

In Spain, dozens of students have spent over a week at a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Valencia campus. Similar camps were set up Monday at the University of Barcelona and at the University of the Basque Country. A group representing students at Madrid’s public universities announced it would step up protests against the war in the coming days.

In Paris, student groups called for gatherings in solidarity with Palestinians later Tuesday.

On Friday, French police peacefully removed dozens of students from a building at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, after they had gathered in support of Palestinians.

On Tuesday, students at the prestigious institution, which counts French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and President Emmanuel Macron among its alumni, were seen entering the campus unobstructed to take exams as police stood at the entrances.

Protests took place last week at some other universities in France, including in Lille and Lyon. Macron’s office said police had been requested to remove students from 23 sites on French campuses.
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