Month: July 2022

More than 18,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported across 78 countries, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

He released the information during opening remarks at his regular COVID-19 update, saying there have been five monkeypox deaths while 10% of cases are admitted to the hospital.

Tedros said the outbreak can be contained as long as countries, communities and individuals take the risks of the virus seriously.

Currently, 98% of cases are among men who have sex with other men. The director-general recommends they reduce the number of sexual partners. He also stressed the importance of not discriminating against a population, because any form of stigma or hate “can be as dangerous as any virus and can fuel the outbreak.”

Monkeypox, which WHO declared a global emergency last week, can be spread from person to person through sexual contact, kissing, hugging and through contaminated clothing, towels and bed sheets.

WHO recommends targeted vaccinations for those who have been exposed and for those with a high risk of exposure, such as health care workers, laboratory workers, and those with multiple sexual partners. WHO is against a mass vaccination plan at this time.

A smallpox vaccine, known as MVA-BN, has been approved for use against monkeypox in Canada, the European Union and the United States. Despite that, WHO still lacks data on the effectiveness of vaccines and therefore urges all countries that are using vaccines to share their data.

The monkeypox vaccine can take up to several weeks before protection takes effect, and WHO advises taking continued precautions to avoid exposure.

WHO wants countries that have access to the smallpox vaccine to share it with those that do not. Tedros said that while vaccines will be an important tool, surveillance, diagnosis and risk reduction remain key factors in preventing further spread.
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The U.S. Senate passed the CHIPs bill by a vote of 64-33 Wednesday, advancing legislation that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say will be key in addressing U.S. economic competition with China.

The $280 billion bill provides $52 billion in grants and incentives to domestic producers of semiconductors, a key element in a wide range of products that require microchips but that are often manufactured abroad.

“Today is a very good day for the American people into the future of our country. I believe firmly that when signed into law, this bill will reawaken the spirit of discovery and innovation that made America the envy of the world,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday ahead of the final vote.

The bill will also provide $200 billion in funding for scientific research over the next 10 years.

“No longer will America always ever be dependent on something offshore that was created here, made in America, invented here. And we will again have the jobs here,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week while meeting with United Auto Workers in the midwestern manufacturing state of Michigan.

The CHIPs bill is a bipartisan compromise after lawmakers spent nearly a year and a half trying to reach an agreement on much more ambitious legislation addressing U.S. competition with China. Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday’s vote was a good start to address strategic competition overseas.

“This funding sends a message that the U.S. is putting a strong down payment on maintaining our edge in the global technology race — and preventing global supply chains from being weaponized against us or our allies. Over the past few years, China has continued to increase investments in its domestic industries — and particularly in areas that confer long-term strategic influence,” Warner said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

With many Americans concerned about a weak economy and rising inflation, some conservatives criticized the cost of the bill that is projected to add $79 billion to America’s national debt over the next decade. Senator Bernie Sanders, who usually votes with Democrats, said this funding benefits wealthy corporations.

“The crisis is caused by the industry shutting down in America and moving abroad. And today what we are doing is say we are going to give you a blank check to undo the damage that you did,” Sanders, an independent, said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

In a written statement Wednesday, Republican Senator Marco Rubio said the version of legislation that passed removed important safeguards on the funding.

“We need to support American production of semiconductors, but we need to do it in a way that benefits our country and our workers. Corporate interests stripped meaningful safeguards from this package and blocked consideration of others,” Rubio said. “No one should be surprised when we hear stories of Beijing stealing U.S. technology funded by this bill or companies producing more chips in China even as they receive money from the taxpayers.”

But ultimately 17 Republicans voted for the funding, citing concerns about U.S. strategic competition with China.   

“This is about national security, and about making sure we have adequate supply here at home of things that are absolutely indispensable. I wish that were inexpensive, but in this particular situation, it’s not,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law in the next week, after the House votes on the legislation before leaving for their six-week summer recess.
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U.S. President Joe Biden signaled his recovery from COVID-19 Wednesday with his first public appearance, in which he touted the progress his administration has made in fighting the pandemic.  

Biden, who appeared in the White House Rose Garden in a suit and tie with his signature aviator sunglasses, appeared in good spirits.  

“As I was walking out, I thought I heard a rumbling on my staff saying, ‘Oh, he’s back,’” he said. “Thanks for sticking around.”

Biden was released from his isolation after testing negative for COVID-19 twice – on Tuesday night and again on Wednesday morning, his doctor said.  

“His symptoms have been steadily improving, and are almost completely resolved,” White House physician Kevin O’Connor wrote. “These results come after the president finished his five-day long treatment of (anti-viral drug) Paxlovid.” He added that Biden will continue to wear a well-fitting mask for 10 days around others.

“My recovery was quick and I’m feeling great,” Biden said. “The entire time I was in isolation, I was able to work, to carry out the duties of the office and without any interruption. It’s a real statement on where we are in the fight against COVID 19.”

Biden tested positive for COVID-19 last Thursday. He is fully vaccinated and double boosted – both interventions that are now more available than they were earlier in the pandemic.  

“When my predecessor got COVID, he had to get helicoptered to Walter Reed Medical Center,” he said. “He was severely ill. Thankfully, he recovered. When I got COVID, I worked from upstairs of the White House, the office upstairs, for the five-day period. The difference is vaccinations of course, but also three new tools free to all and widely available. You don’t need to be president to get these tools to use for your defense. In fact, the same booster shots, the same at home test, the same treatment that I got is available to you.”

He encouraged Americans to remain up to date on their vaccines and boosters, and to remain vigilant amid the rise of a new, highly infectious variant. 

“And now I get to go back to the Oval Office,” he said. 

He did not take questions from reporters as he made the short walk to the president’s ceremonial office. 
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U.S. professional basketball star Brittney Griner, who has admitted arriving in Russia in February with vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage, testified at a court hearing Wednesday that a language interpreter provided to her translated only a fraction of what was being said as authorities arrested her. 

Griner, who faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of transporting drugs, said she was instructed by officials to sign documents at the Moscow airport without them providing an explanation for what she was acknowledging. 

In the sixth session of her slow-moving trial, Griner testified she had no criminal intent in the incident and still does not know how the cannabis oil for which she had a doctor’s recommendation ended up in her luggage. She explained she had packed in haste for the 13-hour flight from the U.S. to Russia, where she was planning to play during the offseason of the Women’s National Basketball Association. 

Griner said she was offered neither an explanation of her rights as she was detained nor access to lawyers to explain the documents she signed. 

It is unclear how long Griner’s trial will last, but a court has authorized her detention until December 20. 

During a Tuesday court session, a Russian neuropsychologist testified about worldwide use of medicinal cannabis, but the drug remains illegal in Russia. Griner’s lawyers have presented a U.S. doctor’s letter recommending that she use medical cannabis to treat pain, which she says she has sustained from her basketball career. 

She testified Wednesday that cannabis oil is widely used in the U.S. for medicinal purposes and has fewer negative effects than some other painkillers. 

But a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said last week that the legalization of cannabis for medical and recreational use in parts of the U.S. had no bearing on what happens in Russia. 

Griner’s U.S. supporters say she is being held as a political pawn, possibly for a prisoner swap. Russian officials say no exchange can be discussed until her legal proceedings are completed.   

Some material in this report came from the Associated Press.  

 
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The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump’s actions in its criminal probe of the former president’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing sources. 

The Justice Department has been interviewing former White House officials, including the former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, who confirmed on Monday he had testified to a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his defeat. 

Prosecutors questioning witnesses before the grand jury have asked about conversations with Trump and his lawyers and others close to him, the Post reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. 

The testimony of Pence’s former Pence chief of staff, Marc Short, the most high-profile official known to have appeared before the grand jury, is a sign the Justice Department’s investigation of the attack on the Capitol and the fake elector plot is heating up. 

Justice Department investigators in April also received phone records of important officials such as Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, The Washington Post said. 

The Justice Department could not be immediately reached for comment. 

A spokeswoman for Trump did not reply to a request for comment from Reuters. Trump has denied wrongdoing. 

In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco confirmed the Justice Department had received referrals about slates of alternative fake electors that were sent to the National Archives, and said prosecutors were reviewing them. 

The fake elector plot has featured prominently in multiple hearings of the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the attack on the Capitol.
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When images beamed back to Earth by NASA’s largest, most powerful space telescope were released earlier this month, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio shared one of them on Twitter accompanied by a Bible verse: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

The Webb telescope is orbiting the sun nearly two million kilometers from Earth. The observatory is on a mission to locate the universe’s first galaxies using extremely sensitive infrared cameras. The initial images released to the public provided the first-ever glimpse of ancient galaxies lighting up the sky.

The reaction to Rubio’s post was inundated with remarks like, “You do realize you can only see that due to science?” And, “If only you were scientifically literate enough to understand all of the ways that this image disproves your mythology.”

Reason versus superstition?

The skeptical comments are emblematic of the long-standing, ongoing debate about whether science and religion can be reconciled.

“There are a gazillion religions, each one making a different set of claims about reality, not just about the nature of God, but about history, about miracles, about what happened. And they’re all different, so they can’t all be true,” says Jerry A. Coyne, an evolutionary biologist and professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.

Coyne, who likens religion to superstition, wrote a book called, “Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.”

“The incompatibility is that both science and religion make statements about what is true in the universe,” Coyne says. “Science has a way of verifying them and religion doesn’t. So, science is based on this sort of science toolkit of empirical reasoning or duplication experiments, whereas religion is based on faith.”

Coyne says he was raised a secular Jew and became an atheist as a teenager.

“Scientists are, in general, much less religious than the general public. And the more accomplished you get as a scientist, the less religious you become,” he says.

A 1998 survey found that 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most prestigious scientific organizations in the U.S., don’t believe in God.

“I personally think there’s a couple of reasons for that,” says Kenneth Miller, a devout Roman Catholic and professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry at Brown University in Rhode Island. “One of them, to be perfectly honest, is the out-and-out hostility that many religious institutions or many religious groups display towards science. And I think that tends to drive people with deep religious faith away from science.”

Mixing science and faith

Some of the world’s foremost scientists have been people of faith, however.

The Big Bang theory, which explains the origins of the universe, was first proposed by a Catholic priest who was also an astronomer and physics professor.

Frances Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health who headed the international effort that first mapped the entire human genome, is a one-time atheist who now identifies as an evangelical Christian.

Farouk El-Baz, a professor in the departments of archaeology and electrical and computer engineering at Boston University, says most of his scientific colleagues see no conflict between science and religion. For El-Baz, the son of an Islamic scholar, the marvel of the Webb telescope’s discoveries deepens both.

“Science actually underlines the importance of religion because God told us that He created the Earth and the heavens,” says El-Baz, who is also director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. “And the heavens, there are supposed to be all kinds of things out there. And scientific investigations have actually proved that, yes, there are all kinds of things out there.”

Evolution, creationism or both

For many, the conflict between science and religion is often rooted in the perceived incongruity between creationism — which suggests that a divine being created Earth and the heavens — and evolution, which holds that living organisms developed over 4.5 billion years.

Miller accepts the theory of evolution and says much of scripture is metaphorical, an explanation of the relationship between Creator and His creation in language that could be understood by people living in a prescientific age.

“[The book of] Genesis, taken literally, is a recent product of certain religious interpretations of scripture,” Miller says. “In particular, it’s an interpretation that became quite influential in the latter part of the 19th century among Christian fundamentalists in the United States. And the reality is that much of scripture is figurative rather than literal.”

Jewish tradition also accepts evolution, according to intellectual historian Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, who suggests that the rise of the religious Christian right in the United States also influenced more observant Jews to harden their position against evolution.

“Medieval Jewish philosophy basically followed the Muslim paradigm,” says Tirosh-Samuelson, a professor of history and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Arizona State University. “The Muslim theologians and the Muslim scholars showed Jews how you can integrate a monotheistic tradition together with Greek and Hellenistic science … and showed how scientific knowledge is always a tool that enables you to understand the divinely created world better.”

Vision of God

In Miller’s view, the concept of God as a designer who worked out every intricate detail of every single living thing is too narrow a vision of the Creator.

“The God that is revealed by evolution is not a God who has to literally tinker with every little piece of trivia in every living organism, but rather a God who created a universe in a world where the very physical conditions of matter and energy were sufficient to accomplish his ends,” Miller says. “And to me, that conception of God creating this extraordinary process that nature itself allows to come about is a much grander vision than a God who has to concern himself with every little detail.”

El-Baz says some people fear that science will reduce their religiosity, but the reverse is true for him.

“We understood through God’s guidance that humans evolved from other creatures, and evolution is still going on, and there’s absolutely no conflict between what science and religion are informing us,” he says. “It’s very easy to consider that a creator, or a force of creation — God or whatever faith you have — that it’s a force that put all of these things together, that created all of this.”

Tirosh-Samuelson says Judaism is not a literalist tradition but rather favors open ended interpretation, which is in keeping with her reaction to the Webb discoveries.

“The grandeur of the universe. The grandeur of God. The grandeur of the human. And in my view, there’s no contradiction between those three. On the contrary, there’s a lot of complementarity between the three,” she says.

“Jewish culture is really pretty much open to discussion and debate about practically every topic. So, there’s something very much in accord with the scientific spirit of inquiry, questioning, uncertainty, skepticism. That’s exactly the opposite of a position that is about certainty and rigidity and closed-mindedness.”
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeated his false claim that he won the 2020 election during a wide-ranging policy speech that marked his defiant return to Washington – and hinted at his possible return to politics.

“I always say I ran the first time and I won,” he said, speaking to about 600 well-heeled supporters in a hotel ballroom just a mile from The White House. “Then I ran a second time, and I did much better. We got millions and millions more votes. And you know what? That’s going to be a story for a long time. What a disgrace it was. But we may just have to do it again. We have to straighten out our game. I have to straighten out our country.”

This came more than halfway through a 90-minute speech that was the capstone of the two-day inaugural gathering of Trump’s America First Policy Institute. In attendance were several Trump administration figures and Republican lawmakers who raised objections to the official certification of electoral votes on January 6, 2021. That event certified the victory of President Joe Biden.

VOA asked former House speaker Newt Gingrich what he thought of Trump’s election victory claim, which is at the center of a series of congressional hearings looking at the violent insurrection attempt Trump supporters made at the U.S. Capitol that day.

“It’s amazing that you could take a two-hour speech and figure out the 90 seconds you care about,” Gingrich responded as his security guards ushered him into a waiting car.

The day before, VOA asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre whether the Biden administration would be watching Trump’s speech.

“It’s not something that I’m tracking or we’re tracking here,” she said. “I don’t know what he’s coming to talk about. I guess we’ll see when he gets here tomorrow.”

Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, told VOA that Trump’s decision to sow doubt about the election outcome is significant.

“Most of his policy interventions and ideas I’m prepared to live with, because at least he was playing within the rules,” he said. “At least this is what a constitutional democracy with checks and balances and democratic process is supposed to allow for and vet. However, when you stop respecting the outcome of elections, just because it hurts you personally, that is a whole different kettle of fish.”

He continued, “I think it really gets into illegal territory pretty quickly. And so it’ll be fascinating to see if he’s indicted. It’ll certainly be fascinating to see what he says in coming weeks and months.

“But I’m afraid that this is dangerous for our country, this kind of attitude by President Trump and his going against Democrats and Republicans, around the country, around the states within the Congress, within the system of checks and balances, just to serve his own personal, narcissistic political interest.”

The events of January 6, 2021, have been dramatically replayed in meticulous detail in the past month during a series of slickly produced congressional hearings. Those featured an outtake from Trump’s recorded message to the nation a day after the insurrection, in which he finally promised an orderly transition. The day after the January 6 attack, Trump still couldn’t say the election was over.

“I don’t want to say the election’s over,” he said during the outtake. “I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the election’s over.”

On Tuesday, he said that part out loud and called the two attempts to remove him from office “impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two.”

Trump also sketched out what he described as a “law and order” agenda that would take a harder line on immigrants and drug offenders and give law enforcement enhanced power. He also expressed admiration for China’s strict drug laws and its use of the death penalty in drug cases.

“There is no higher priority than cleaning up our streets, controlling our borders, stopping the drugs from pouring in, and quickly restoring law and order in America,” he said, adding: “There’s never been a time like this. Our streets are riddled with needles, and soaked with the blood of innocent victims. Many of our once-great cities from New York to Chicago to L.A., where the middle class used to flock to live the American dream, are now war zones, literal war zones.”

Outside, several dozen protesters gathered to oppose Trump’s appearance. “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” they chanted, across the street from several dozen supporters who waved large American flags and blew vuvuzelas.

Local police officers stood nearby and watched.
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Fed Chair Jerome Powell and a senior member of Congress are at odds over a report issued Tuesday by Senate Republicans alleging that China is trying to infiltrate the Federal Reserve and that the central bank has done too little to stop it. 

The report by members of the Republican minority of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee alleges that China has used promises of lucrative teaching and research contracts to try to entice economists working at more than half of the system’s 12 Federal Reserve Banks to share nonpublic information about economic forecasts and monetary policy decisions with Chinese officials. 

China’s goal, according to the report, is to “supplant the U.S. as the global economic leader and end the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s primary reserve currency.” 

In one case, the report alleges that a Fed economist was detained while traveling in China and threatened with arrest and retaliation against his family if he did not cooperate. 

Variety of contacts 

While the report paints an alarming picture, many of the details provided about Fed officials’ contact with Chinese officials are not obviously nefarious. The central bank’s researchers and officials regularly correspond and meet with their counterparts around the world, often exchanging information when they do so. 

However, some of the activity described is clearly suspicious, including one Fed employee who was found to be researching articles on the prosecution of economic espionage, and who used a modified version of the name of Chinese President Xi Jinping as one of his computer passwords. 

The report lays out five “case studies” that go into detail about unnamed Fed officials’ contacts with China. The report notes that the Fed investigated the activities of the individuals involved to determine whether any information was provided to China in violation of Fed policy. In all five cases, the investigation “did not identify any policy violations.” 

Nevertheless, the report alleges that the central bank has fallen short in responding to China’s alleged efforts at infiltration, saying that the Fed “lacks sufficient counterintelligence expertise and cooperation with U.S. law enforcement and the U.S. Intelligence Community.” 

It also claims that the Fed’s policies and procedures are insufficient to counter the threat of Chinese infiltration, and criticizes the central bank for allowing employees to retain access to sensitive information after learning of their connections with Chinese organizations.  

“I am concerned by the threat to the Fed and hope our investigation, which is based on the Fed’s own documents and corresponds with assessments and recommendations made by the FBI, wakes the Fed up to the broad threat from China to our monetary policy,” said Senator Rob Portman, the ranking Republican on the committee. “The risk is clear. I urge the Fed to do more, working with the FBI, to counter this threat from one of our foremost foreign adversaries.” 

Strong Fed response 

The report generated a forceful rebuttal from Powell, who said the central bank’s staff are well aware of their obligations to keep sensitive information secret.  

In a letter addressed to Portman, Powell wrote, “Because we understand that some actors aim to exploit any vulnerabilities, our processes, controls and technology are robust and updated regularly. We respectfully reject any suggestions to the contrary.” 

Powell, a Republican who was appointed Fed chair by former president Donald Trump in 2018, also took issue with the report’s description of the activities of a number of individual Fed employees, saying that the central bank is “deeply troubled by what we believe to be the report’s unfair, unsubstantiated and unverified insinuations about particular individual staff members.” 

Chinese government response 

Chinese officials criticized the report, saying it reflects outdated thinking about the relationship between the two countries. 

In a statement emailed to VOA, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said, “The remarks of the relevant U.S. congressmen are full of Cold War zero-sum thinking and ideological prejudice.” 

He added, “The cooperation between China and the U.S. in economic, financial and other fields is open and aboveboard, which has played an important role in enhancing mutual understanding and mutual trust between the two countries. The U.S. should take off its colored glasses and stop disrupting local and non-governmental exchanges between the two countries.” 

Talent recruitment programs 

Portman has previously led other investigations into China’s use of talent recruitment programs to develop connections with U.S. scientists and academics, allegedly in the service of obtaining proprietary information and technology. 

The most prominent of these is the Thousand Talents Plan established in 2008, which offers top scientists and scholars across a number of disciplines financial incentives to come to China to teach or do research. 

Tuesday’s report alleges that a number of Fed officials participated in the program or had relationships with a former Fed official who did. The report lays out five “case studies” that outline contacts that Fed employees had with Chinese officials and institutions, including multiple universities. 

In 2021, the Fed instituted a new rule barring employees from accepting any outside compensation from “restricted” countries, including China. 

‘Individual A’ 

The most troubling of the case studies focuses on a Federal Reserve Bank economist identified as “Individual A.” The report alleges that in 2019, while visiting China, he was detained on four separate occasions by Chinese officials. 

“The officials threatened Individual A’s family, allegedly tapped his phones and computers, and copied the contact information of other Fed officials from Individual A’s WeChat account,” according to the report. 

In addition, they threatened him with imprisonment and demanded he share sensitive nonpublic data about the U.S. economy and Fed policies, including information about the deliberations of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets U.S. interest rates. 

The Fed reported the incident to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and issued a warning to all of its economists about traveling to China. 

 
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On the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the U.S. remains one of a handful of countries that have not ratified the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — an international treaty the U.S. legislation inspired.  

The ADA, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990, prohibits discrimination based on disability in public accommodations, employment, transportation and community living, and provides recourse for people with disabilities who faced discrimination.    

“It’s hard for the newer generation to imagine the injustices suffered before the ADA,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday in a House Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus event to celebrate the ADA’s anniversary. Biden, who is still in isolation from his COVID-19 diagnosis, delivered his remarks virtually.  

“If you’re disabled, stores can turn you away, and employers can refuse to hire you. If you use a wheelchair, there was no accommodation to take the bus or train to school or to work. America simply wasn’t built for all Americans,” Biden said. 

The administration on Tuesday announced $1.75 billion to make it easier for people with disabilities to get on board the nation’s public transportation systems, including $343 million to help agencies retrofit train and subway stations built prior to the disabilities act. 

During the caucus event, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats will not give up trying to ratify the CRPD. A National Security Council spokesperson told VOA the administration “would certainly support its ratification.” 

However, with only 48 Democrats and two independents in the 100-seat U.S. Senate, and an urgent legislative agenda in the pipeline, it is unlikely that the Biden White House will take up the matter anytime soon.  

Global disability movement 

Since its passing, the ADA has inspired disability laws in various countries and sparked a movement for disability rights around the world that culminated in the CPRD. The U.S. also provided technical assistance during the convention’s negotiation and drafting process. 

The CPRD came into force in 2008 and was signed by President Barack Obama in 2009. But in 2012, it fell five votes short of the two-thirds majority required for the U.S. Senate to adopt it, largely due to a reluctance to submit to international law on a domestic policy matter. 

Out of 193 U.N. member countries, 185 have ratified the CRPD that aims to promote, protect and ensure full and equal enjoyment of all human rights for persons with disabilities.  

“We’re always very much open and honest in recognizing we haven’t ratified the CRPD,” Sara Minkara, special adviser on international disability rights, told VOA.  

Minkara, who is legally blind, leads the Office of International Disability Rights at the U.S. Department of State, which promotes the rights of persons with disabilities around the world through American diplomacy and development aid. The position was created under the Obama administration, and her office was made permanent by the Biden administration last November. 

In various countries, views on people with disabilities often fall between pity or inspiration from their suffering, Minkara said, and those extreme narratives contribute to societies leaving people with disabilities behind. 

“We need to normalize disability. We need to change how we look at the word disability. We need to change how we look at disabilities and identities, not from a pity lens but from a strength and value-based lens.”  

The administration says it supports “disability-inclusive development and humanitarian action” around the world.  

However, there is no mechanism to ensure full disability inclusion in U.S. foreign assistance, said Eric Rosenthal, executive director of the advocacy group Disability Rights International. 

“You can offer your assistance and say our assistance is available to all people, but the truth is, people with disabilities have a hard time finding the aid,” Rosenthal told VOA. “There has to be more active outreach efforts.” 

People with intellectual disabilities, psychiatric and psychosocial disabilities are particularly vulnerable, Rosenthal said. In many places, they are often stripped of legal rights and put away in institutions. 

“There are very serious human rights violations against them in most countries, and the advocacy movements are usually way behind the advocacy movements for other disability groups,” Rosenthal said. “So, that’s an example of a very at-risk group that needs to be targeted for more attention.” 

Disability Rights International and other groups have endorsed a concept for a U.S. bill to support the efforts of disability advocates worldwide to stop children with disabilities from being institutionalized, where they often face serious neglect and abuse. 

Katherine Gypson and Cindy Saine contributed to this report.

 
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President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 symptoms are now “almost completely resolved,” said Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician. 

Biden completed a five-day course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid Monday night, O’Connor said, and Biden’s pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain normal. 

Biden now feels well enough to resume his physical exercise routine, but he will continue isolation Tuesday for a fifth day. The president has been isolated in the White House since he tested positive for COVID-19 last Thursday. 

Health officials believe Biden contracted the BA.5 variant of omicron. Dr. Ashish Jha, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said the BA.5 variant is now responsible for 75% to 80% of COVID-19 cases in the United States. 

Biden, who is fully vaccinated and double boosted, experienced mild symptoms over the past five days, including “some residual nasal congestion and minimal hoarseness.”

Biden has canceled all in-person events for this week, but he will continue to attend events virtually until he is cleared from isolation. 

First lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both tested negative on Monday. Jill Biden is residing in the family home in Delaware while the president is in isolation. Harris was cleared Monday to attend an event in Indiana on abortion.
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The U.S. Senate voted 64-32 on Tuesday to advance legislation to dramatically boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing in a bid to make the domestic industry more competitive with China.

The legislation provides about $52 billion in government subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production as well as an investment tax credit for chip plants estimated to be worth $24 billion.

The Senate is expected to vote on final passage in coming days and the U.S. House could follow suit as soon as later this week.

President Joe Biden and others have cast the issue in national security terms, saying it is essential to ensure U.S. production of chips that are crucial to a wide range of consumer goods and military equipment.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called the vote “a symbol of the strong bipartisan coalition working to build more chips in America. These chips keep our economy strong and our country safe.”

The bill aims to ease a persistent shortage that has dented production in industries including automobiles, consumer electronics, medical equipment and high-tech weapons, forcing some manufacturers to scale back production. Auto production has been especially hit hard.

“The pandemic made clear with unforgiving clarity how America’s chip shortage was creating a crisis,” the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer said before the vote.

The Semiconductor Industry Association said the vote is a “vital step toward enactment of legislation that will strengthen American chip production and innovation, economic growth and job creation, and national security.”

Biden pushed hard for the bill, which has been in the works for well over a year, with a version passing the Senate in June 2021 but stalling in the House. This frustrated lawmakers from both parties who view competition with China and global supply chain issues as top priorities.

Critics like Senator Bernie Sanders have called the measure a “blank check” to highly profitable chips companies.

Biden met virtually on Monday with the chief executives of Lockheed Martin Corp, Medtronic and Cummins Inc along with labor leaders as part of the administration’s push for the legislation.
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Tim Giago, the founder of the first independently owned Native American newspaper in the United States, has died at age 88, his former wife said.

Giago, who died at Monument Health in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Sunday, created an enduring legacy during his more than four decades of work in South Dakota journalism, his colleagues said.

Giago, who was a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, founded The Lakota Times with his first wife, Doris, in 1981, and quickly showed that he wasn’t afraid to challenge those in power and advocate for American Indians, she said.

Launching the paper, even years after the 1973 Wounded Knee siege between U.S. marshals and the Native American Movement, was challenging because wounds still existed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and in South Dakota, Doris Giago said.

Tim Giago blamed the American Indian Movement for violence on the reservation. Windows at the paper were broken and the office was firebombed.

“And through it all, Tim never backed down,” said Doris Giago, who was married to him from 1979 to 1986.

The Lakota Times was eventually renamed Indian Country Today, and later became ICT. In a July 2021 interview with the paper, Giago recounted that tense period and “some of the hard things that came out of work.”

“One night got in my pickup and somebody put a bullet through my windshield and just missed my head,” Giago told the newspaper. “So, I mean, if that’s what it took to get the freedom of the press going on the reservation, I guess that’s what it took.”

Giago, a 1991 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, wrote years later that while he was working as a reporter for the Rapid City Journal, he was bothered by the fact that although he had been born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he was seldom given an opportunity to do news stories about the people of the reservation.

“One editor told me that I would not be able to be objective in my reporting. I replied, ‘All of your reporters are white. Are they objective when covering the white community?”‘

The Giagos started the Lakota Times in a former beauty shop on the reservation, with no real training on the business side of newspapering, Doris Giago recalled.

“They gave us six months to succeed. They didn’t think we would last after that. We learned from our mistakes,” she said.

In 1992, he changed the paper’s name to Indian Country Today to reflect its national coverage of Native American news and issues. He sold the paper to the Oneida Nation in 1998.

Two years later he founded The Lakota Journal and in 2009, he founded the Native Sun News, based in Rapid City, South Dakota.

“He always pushed for more, reaching for an even better way to serve Native American people with news. So, after Lakota Times it was Indian Country Today. Then Lakota Journal. Then Native Sun News. He never lost his vision about how important it is for a community to have a journalistic recording of itself,” said Mark Trahant, ICT’s editor-at-large.

Giago founded the Native American Journalists Association and served as its first president. He was also the first Native American to be inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame.

Even though Giago’s work had critics, they still respected him “for doing his job and protecting Native people,” ICT’s editor Jourdan Bennett-Begaye said.

“Nothing could stop him. What I really admired about him was his fearlessness,” she said.

Survivors include his wife, Jackie Giago; a sister, Lillian; 12 children and numerous grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were pending.
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Britain and the European Union have extended sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.K. Foreign Office said on its website Tuesday that the sanctions, which included travel bans and asset freezes, were imposed on 42 new people and entities, including several governors of Russian regions and the Kremlin-installed prime minister of the separatist-controlled Donetsk region of Ukraine, Vitaly Khotsenko.

The EU, meanwhile, approved the extension of its sanctions for another six months until January 31, the European Council said in a statement.

The U.K. said its list also includes Vladislav Kuznetsov, the Moscow-imposed first deputy chairman of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, which is held by Russia-backed separatists.

“We will not keep quiet and watch Kremlin-appointed state actors suppress the people of Ukraine or the freedoms of their own people,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement “We will continue to impose harsh sanctions on those who are trying to legitimize Putin’s illegal invasion until Ukraine prevails.”

Since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Britain has sanctioned more than 1,100 people and over 100 businesses.

The EU has introduced six rounds of sanctions on Russia in coordination with its Western partners.
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The United States is sending a high-profile diplomatic delegation to visit the Solomon Islands next week led by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and including Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy. 

The U.S. State Department said Tuesday the trip is to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal and for the diplomats to meet with Solomon Islands officials to “highlight the enduring relationship” between the two nations. 

The visit will hold particular personal interest for Sherman and Kennedy, whose fathers both fought there during World War II. 

And it comes after the United States and several Pacific nations expressed deep concern about a security pact the Solomon Islands signed with China in April, which many fear could result in a military buildup in the region. 

The trip will also highlight the reopening of the U.S. embassy in the capital, Honiara, which is part of an express U.S. strategy to counter China’s growing influence. 

The United States previously operated an embassy in the Solomon Islands for five years before closing it in 1993. 

Kennedy has just begun her role in Australia after formally presenting her credentials on Monday. When she arrived in Australia last week, she told reporters the Pacific region was critical and “I think the U.S. needs to do more.” 

“We’re putting our embassies back in and the Peace Corps is coming, and USAID is coming back and we’re coming back,” she said. 

Kennedy said the Pacific held great personal significance because her father, the late President John F. Kennedy, had served there during World War II and “was rescued by two Solomon Islanders and an Australian coast watcher.” 

Sherman’s father Mal Sherman was a Marine who was wounded during the Battle of Guadalcanal. 

As well as Sherman and Kennedy, the delegation will include Kin Moy, a state department principal deputy assistant secretary, and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Stephen Sklenka, the deputy commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. 

During the Aug. 6-8 trip, Sherman is scheduled to give speeches at Skyline Ridge, the site of the U.S. Guadalcanal Memorial, and at Bloody Ridge. 
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Former President Donald Trump will return to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving office, delivering a policy speech before an allied think tank that has been crafting an agenda for a possible second term.

Trump will address the America First Policy Institute’s two-day America First Agenda Summit as some advisers urge him to spend more time talking about his vision for the future and less time relitigating the 2020 election as he prepares to announce an expected 2024 White House campaign.

“I believe it will be a very policy-focused, forward-leaning speech, very much like a State of the Union 5.0,” said Brooke Rollins, AFPI’s president. Composed of former Trump administration officials and allies, the nonprofit is widely seen as an “administration in waiting” that could quickly move to the West Wing if Trump were to run again and win.

Trump’s appearance in Washington — his first trip back since Jan. 20, 2021, when President Joe Biden was sworn into office — comes as his potential 2024 rivals have been taking increasingly overt steps to challenge his status as the party’s standard-bearer. They include former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been touting his own “Freedom Agenda” in speeches that serve as an implicit contrast with Trump.

“Some people may choose to focus on the past, but I believe conservatives must focus on the future. If we do, we won’t just win the next election, we will change the course of American history for generations,” Pence had planned to say in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on the eve of Trump’s visit. Pence’s appearance was postponed because of bad weather, but he will be delivering his own speech Tuesday morning before the Young America’s Foundation not far from the AFPI meeting.

On Tuesday, he plans to focus on public safety.

“`President Trump sees a nation in decline that is driven, in part, by rising crime and communities becoming less safe under Democrat policies,” said his spokesman, Taylor Budowich. “His remarks will highlight the policy failures of Democrats, while laying out an America First vision for public safety that will surely be a defining issue during the midterms and beyond.”

Beyond the summit, staff at the America First Policy Institute have been laying their own groundwork for the future, “making sure we do have the policies, personnel and process nailed down for every key agency when we do take the White House back,” Rollins said.

The nonprofit developed, she said, from efforts to avoid the chaotic early days of Trump’s first term, when he arrived at the White House unprepared, with no clear plans ready to put in place. As Trump was running for reelection, Rollins, then the head of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, began to sketch out a second-term agenda with fellow administration officials, including top economic policy adviser Larry Kudlow and national security adviser Robert O’Brien.

When it became clear Trump would be leaving the White House, she said, AFPI was created to continue that work ”organized around that second term agenda that we never released.”

The organization, once dismissed as a landing zone for ex-Trump administration officials shut out of more lucrative jobs, has grown into a behemoth, with an operating budget of around $25 million and 150 staff, including 17 former senior White Houses officials and nine former Cabinet members.

The group also has more than 20 policy centers and has tried to extend its reach beyond Washington with efforts to influence local legislatures and school boards. An “American leadership initiative,” led by the former head of the Office of Personnel Management, Michael Rigas, launched several weeks ago to identify future staff loyal to Trump and his “America First” approach who could be hired as part of a larger effort to replace large swaths of the civil service, as Axios recently reported.

The group is one of several Trump-allied organizations that have continued to push his polices in his absence, including America First Legal, dedicated to fighting Biden’s agenda through the court system, the Center for Renewing America and the Conservative Partnership Institute.

The summit is intended to highlight AFPI’s “America First Agenda,” centered around 10 key policy areas including the economy, health care and election security. It includes many of Trump’s signature issues, like continuing to build a wall along the southern border and a plan to dismantle the administrative state.

In a speech Monday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose “Contract with America” has been credited with helping Republicans sweep the 1994 midterm elections, praised the effort as key to future GOP victory.

“The American people want solutions,” he said.

Trump has spent much of his time since leaving office fixated on the 2020 election and spreading lies about his loss to sow doubt about Biden’s victory. Indeed, even as the Jan. 6 committee was laying bare his desperate and potentially illegal attempts to remain in power and his refusal to call off a violent mob of his supporters as they tried to halt the peaceful transition of power, Trump continued to try to pressure officials to overturn Biden’s win, despite there being no legal means to decertify the past election.
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