Month: January 2023

Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this week, as seen from the United Nations’ perch.

UN deputy chief says Taliban’s desire for recognition is bargaining chip on rights

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said Wednesday that the international community’s best leverage to persuade the Taliban to reverse restrictions on Afghan women’s rights is the group’s desire for international recognition. She told reporters that the U.N. and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation are discussing holding a conference in March in the region on women in the Muslim world. Mohammed led a high-level U.N. delegation to Afghanistan this past week.

Nuclear watchdog warns Iran has enough material for several nuclear bombs

International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Rafael Grossi warned Tuesday that Iran has accumulated “enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons.” Grossi told the European Parliament’s security and defense subcommittee in Brussels that his agency is no longer monitoring Iran’s nuclear program because the regime has disconnected 27 of the agency’s cameras installed at its declared nuclear sites. Grossi said he plans to travel to Tehran, Iran, next month.

No progress on international force for Haiti

The U.N. and the government of Haiti reiterated their appeal Tuesday for an international force to quickly deploy to the island nation to help subdue an unprecedented level of gang violence that has terrorized the population. In early October, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres backed a request from the Haitian government to send a force to address escalating insecurity and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

2023 global economic forecast looks gloomy

U.N. economists forecast a gloomy and uncertain outlook this year, with the global economy projected to grow at a very sluggish rate. The 2023 World Economic Situation and Prospects report, issued Wednesday, says a series of severe shocks have reduced global economic output to its lowest level in years, leaving many economies at risk of falling into recession. In good news, the authors say inflation appears to have peaked in some of the more advanced economies, and East and South Asia emerged as the report’s bright spots for growth.

Myanmar poppy production grows since military coup

A report from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says Myanmar’s farmers are flocking back to opium poppy cultivation amid rising prices for the contraband crop and an economic decline that is wiping out jobs, reversing nearly a decade of poppy decreases. Myanmar is the world’s second-largest producer of opium, after Afghanistan, and the main source for most of East and Southeast Asia. UNODC says many people have resorted to poppy cultivation because jobs and investment have dried up following the military coup two years ago.

In brief

— U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is on a mission to Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya this week to advance joint priorities following December’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. Her tour is focused on regional security issues, food insecurity, humanitarian issues, and supporting African efforts to mitigate climate change, a senior administration official said.

— This week, World Food Program Chief David Beasley is in Syria, where he raised the alarm on unprecedented levels of hunger. He said 12 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from, while an additional 2.9 million are at risk of sliding into hunger. Overall, due to conflict, COVID-19 and an economic crisis, 70% of the population might soon be unable to feed their families.

— The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said in a report released Friday that “there are reasonable grounds to believe” that Syria’s Air Forces perpetrated a chemical weapons attack on April 7, 2018, in Douma, Syria. The OPCW said at least one helicopter of the Syrian “Tiger Forces” elite unit dropped two yellow cylinders containing toxic chlorine gas on two apartment buildings in a residential area of Douma, killing at least 43 people and affecting dozens more. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric condemned the use of chemical weapons and said, “it is imperative that those who use chemical weapons are identified and held accountable.”

Quote of note

“You have to remember that what happened before the Taliban came back was a huge amount of hope, and an expression of that hope with many women who got an education, who were in decision-making roles, who were leaders in Afghanistan, and now that’s dashed. And when that happens, the anxiety and the level of fear amongst women and their future is huge, it’s palpable.”

— U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed to reporters on the situation of Afghan women under the Taliban​

What we are watching next week

February 1 marks two years since the Myanmar military overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, leading to protests and a crackdown on human rights. Since the coup, leaders and thousands of pro-democracy protesters have died or been jailed, and the humanitarian situation has worsened.
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The tragic shooting this week at a mushroom farm in northern California’s Half Moon Bay wasn’t the first time workers there witnessed gun violence. In fact, according to one of the former owners of the farm, the suspect at the center of Monday’s mass shooting, Chunli Zhao, was there during the earlier incident and documented the aftermath on video.

On July 3, 2022, a day after the incident, Zhao sent a video to his former boss Huizhong Li on WeChat, a Chinese social media app. Li, who no longer lives in the San Francisco Bay area, shared the video with VOA’s Mandarin service.

According to court documents from the San Mateo County District Attorney’s office, one farm manager had threatened to kill another and fired bullets into the man’s trailer. No one was hurt.

As Zhao walked through mobile homes on the farm in Half Moon Bay, he provided narration in Chinese, explaining how 9 mm bullets whizzed through the exterior walls and windows of the mobile homes housing other farm workers at California Terra Garden, a commercial mushroom grower. He showed how one bullet passed through a window and cardboard boxes before lodging in interior walls.

“Let the whole world know about America’s gun violence,” Zhao said in the video. “We don’t feel safe at all. Bullets were flying everywhere.”

In that same chat, Zhao also shared a video with Li of him firing rounds with a handgun at a local shooting range.

Fast forward six months and now Zhao, 66, is the suspect in the latest and deadliest shooting that left seven people dead.

On Wednesday afternoon, Zhao appeared in a San Mateo County court, where he was charged with seven counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and related charges in back-to-back shootings on Monday.

A semiautomatic weapon was legally registered to him, said San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus, speaking to CNN.

Zhao did not enter a plea and was not granted bail. District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said Zhao was a flight risk, according to KGO-TV, which reported Wagstaffe’s office is trying to determine Zhao’s immigration status.

Zhao told KNTV-TV, another San Francisco Bay area station, that he has lived in the U.S. for 11 years and has a green card. He also said he bought a handgun in 2021.

The 10-page criminal complaint from the district attorney’s office also alleges “special circumstances” and that Zhao “personally and intentionally” shot to kill.

Under California law, defendants who are convicted of murder with “special circumstances” are eligible for the death penalty, although the state declared a moratorium on executions in 2019.

San Mateo County sheriff’s officials said they believe Zhao acted alone when he entered California Terra Garden and opened fire, killing four and leaving another person seriously wounded. He then drove to a nearby farm where he had previously worked and killed three people and wounded another, sheriff’s office spokesman Eamonn Allen told reporters Tuesday.

Officials have identified the seven victims and said they were of Asian and Hispanic descent. The survivor was Hispanic.

Li said one of the victims at the first site was Zhao’s manager. Two more victims were Zhao’s co-workers and neighbors who, like Zhao, hailed from northeastern China.

Li told VOA Mandarin that Zhao started working with him at California Terra Garden at the end of 2016 or early 2017 when it was known as Mountain Mushroom Farm. Li said he was the CEO until the business was taken over later in 2017.

Li said Zhao lived in one of the farm homes with his wife and that the couple has a daughter in China. Li said he believes that Zhao and his wife are permanent residents of the United States.

David Oates, spokesman for the current owner, California Terra Garden, told VOA Mandarin that Zhao has a legal work permit and Social Security number.

Oates told CNN that Zhao worked at the farm about seven years. He also said that, like the other 34 employees at the farm, Zhao had gone through a background check and there was “nothing to indicate anything like this was even a possibility.”

However, according to San Mateo County court documents, in 2013 Zhao was accused of threatening Yingjiu Wang, 44 at the time, who worked at a restaurant with him in San Jose. According to the documents, Zhao on March 12, 2013, attempted to suffocate Wang with a pillow around 6 a.m. and on March 14, threatened to split open Wang’s head with a knife.

The court granted Wang, who was also Zhao’s roommate at that time, a temporary restraining order against Zhao on June 4, 2013. The men had had disagreements related to work, according to the filing.

“Mr. Zhao said to me, today I am going to kill you. … He then took a pillow and started to cover my face and suffocate me,” Wang told investigators according to the court filings.

Li remembers Zhao as a “narrow-minded” and “petty” person without friends.

“In terms of work, if there is any friction between him and certain employees, he liked to report them behind their back saying that other employees are not good, but he is better,” Li said. “If you made it easier for him and gave him more money at work, he thought you were very good.”

This story originated in VOA’s Mandarin Service.
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One of the lowest points in recent Sino-American relations came in July 2021 when U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, on a visit to Beijing, was scolded by her Chinese interlocutor and handed a “List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop.”

Sherman was also warned during the strained encounter about what the Chinese described as the Biden administration’s “highly misguided mindset” and handed a second “List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns With.”

The man who delivered those messages, Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, is now widely expected in diplomatic circles to be named as the next Chinese ambassador to Washington, taking up the post recently vacated by current Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

China has noticeably softened its anti-American rhetoric since a Nov. 14 meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia, and policy analysts in Washington are waiting to see whether Xie’s expected appointment portends a continuation of that trend or a return to the “wolf warrior” diplomacy of recent years.

The uncertainly is heightened by the fact that, despite a stint at the Chinese embassy in Washington earlier in his career, Xie remains largely a cipher even to people who make a living knowing who’s who in China, such as June Teufel Dreyer, the author of China’s Political System, now in its 10th edition.

“I don’t really know much about him,” acknowledged Dreyer, a political science professor at the University of Miami. “My attitude towards the incoming Chinese ambassador is ‘wait and see’ – let’s see what he does,” she told VOA in a phone interview.

Born in 1964, Xie was promoted to his current position of vice minister of foreign affairs in February 2021 after serving as the ministry’s special envoy in Hong Kong for a little over three years. In that time, he was noticed and appreciated by higher ups for daring to engage with antagonists, local media reported at the time Xie was leaving Hong Kong for Beijing.

He had been just a few months in his current post at the time of the widely reported encounter with Sherman. In that same meeting with the American diplomat and her delegation, he delivered a strongly worded rebuttal to U.S. calls for the world to adhere to a “rules-based order.”

“The U.S. side’s so-called ‘rules-based international order’ is an effort by the United States and a few other Western countries to frame their own rules as international rules and impose them on other countries,” Xie told a visiting American delegation, according to the Chinese foreign ministry and state media.

By demanding adherence to a rules-based order, Xie was quoted as saying, the United States and its Western allies “resort to the tactic of changing the rules to make life easy for itself and hard for others, and to introduce ‘the law of the jungle’ where might is right and the big bully the small.”

Xie also told the delegation that the declared American approach to China – based on competition, cooperation where possible, and contest “where we must” – is in fact aimed at deception.

The core of the policy is “confrontation,” he said, according to reports published on the foreign ministry’s website. “Cooperation” is mere stopgap and “competition” is a rhetorical trap; all America wanted was “one-sided absolute gains while having done everything bad imaginable,” Xie was quoted as saying.

Dreyer, in the telephone interview, acknowledged the perceived softening of Chinese rhetoric in more recent months, but said she was reserving judgment. The Chinese “say they want to be friends, but we need to see some concrete action, not just words, but deeds,” she said.

“I would also remind you that people who say nice words will often stab you in the back; in other words, being nice and having nice, polite manners is one thing, but being truly nice is another. People who speak kind words [their doing so] often masks sinister intentions.”

The author also stressed that Chinese policy will be made in Beijing, not at the embassy in Washington.

“Ambassadors — our ambassadors and their ambassadors — are essentially window-dressing,” she said. “They give cocktail parties; they give interviews where they say largely meaningless things. There’s not much he can do unless the party tells him to do it. In this case he’s the mouthpiece of the party.”

The same point was made by Xia Ming, a political science professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, who cited volatility in Chinese domestic politics as a reason to reserve judgment on what to expect from the new envoy.

“The 20th Party Congress showed the world that Chinese politics is anything but staid or stable,” he told VOA in a phone interview.

Even greater skepticism was expressed by Republican Congressman Chris Smith, the chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and a prominent promoter of human rights around the world.

“Unless the Chinese Communist Party’s promise to soften its rhetoric is matched with a radical change in behavior and deeds, their words still mean absolutely nothing,” said Smith, who has been sanctioned by China for calling out human rights violations that China describes as baseless.

“The CCP’s long-term strategic objective — to assert global dominance and spread its malign system abroad — is being pursued as aggressively as always. The United States must continue to combat Xi Jinping’s brutal dictatorship and hold the CCP to account for its atrocious human rights abuses,” he said in a written response to questions from VOA.
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A comet is streaking back our way after 50,000 years. 

The dirty snowball last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It will come within 42 million kilometers (26 million miles) of Earth on Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years. 

Discovered less than a year ago, this harmless green comet already is visible in the northern night sky with binoculars and small telescopes, and possibly the naked eye in the darkest corners of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s expected to brighten as it draws closer and rises higher over the horizon through the end of January, best seen in the predawn hours. By February 10, it will be near Mars, a good landmark. 

Skygazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait until next month for a glimpse. 

Bigger, brighter, closer

While plenty of comets have graced the sky over the past year, “this one seems probably a little bit bigger and therefore a little bit brighter and it’s coming a little bit closer to the Earth’s orbit,” said NASA’s comet and asteroid-tracking guru, Paul Chodas. 

Green from all the carbon in the gas cloud, or coma, surrounding the nucleus, this long-period comet was discovered last March by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility, a wide field camera at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. That explains its official, cumbersome name: comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). 

On Wednesday, it will hurtle between the orbits of Earth and Mars at a relative speed of 207,000 kph (128,500 mph). Its nucleus is thought to be about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) across, with its tails extending millions of kilometers (miles). 

The comet isn’t expected to be nearly as bright as Neowise in 2020, or Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid- to late 1990s. 

But “it will be bright by virtue of its close Earth passage … which allows scientists to do more experiments and the public to be able to see a beautiful comet,” University of Hawaii astronomer Karen Meech said in an email. 

Scientists are confident in their orbital calculations, putting the comet’s last swing through the solar system’s planetary neighborhood at 50,000 years ago. But they don’t know how close it came to Earth or whether it was even visible to the Neanderthals, said Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. 

When it will return, though, is tougher to judge. 

Every time the comet skirts the sun and planets, their gravitational tugs alter the iceball’s path ever so slightly, leading to major course changes over time. Another wild card: jets of dust and gas streaming off the comet as it heats up near the sun. 

“We don’t really know exactly how much they are pushing this comet around,” Chodas said. 

A moving time capsule

The comet — a time capsule from the emerging solar system 4.5 billion years ago — came from what’s known as the Oort Cloud, well beyond Pluto. This deep-freeze haven for comets is believed to stretch more than one-quarter of the way to the next star. 

While this comet originated in our solar system, we can’t be sure it will stay there, Chodas said. If it gets booted out of the solar system, it will never return, he added. 

Don’t fret if you miss it. 

“In the comet business, you just wait for the next one because there are dozens of these,” Chodas said. “And the next one might be bigger, might be brighter, might be closer.” 
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Three members of an Eastern European criminal gang with ties to Iran have been indicted in connection with plotting to murder Iranian-American human rights activist and VOA Persian host Masih Alinejad, the Justice Department announced on Friday.

Rafat Amirov, 43, of Iran, Polad Omarov, 38, of the Czech Republic, and Khalid Mehdiyev, 24, of Yonkers, New York, are all in custody and face charges of murder for hire and money laundering, Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference.

“In the United States of America, our system of laws protects our citizens in the peaceful exercise of their constitutional and civil rights,” Garland said. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to undermine those protections and the rule of law upon which our democracy is based.”

Amirov, the alleged ringleader of the plot, was “lawfully arrested” outside the United States and arrived in New York on Thursday, Garland said. Amirov was to be arraigned before a federal magistrate judge later Friday.

Mehdiyev, a New York-based member of the group, was arrested on July 29 and will make his first court appearance next week.

Omarov was detained in the Czech Republic on January 4, and U.S. officials said they will seek his extradition on charges in the indictment.

Mehdiev was arrested after police found him with an assault rifle and about 66 rounds of ammunition near Alinejad’s home in Brooklyn.

Alinejad, the host of “Tablet,” a weekly TV program for VOA Persian covering news developments in Iran and featuring videos shared by people living there, has been the target of several Iranian-sponsored assassination attempts.

In 2021, federal prosecutors charged an Iranian intelligence officer and three Iranian intelligence assets with plotting to kidnap the journalist for rendition to Iran and possible execution.

“The government of Iran has continued to target the victim since then,” Garland said.

Following news of the indictments, Alinejad said in a video published on Twitter that she has no plans to stop what she is doing, and she called on authorities to pay more attention to the situation facing people in Iran.

“I’m not scared for my life,” she said. “I knew that killing, assassinating, hanging, torturing, raping is in the DNA of the Islamic Republic. That’s why I came to the United States of America, to practice my right, my freedom of expression to be voice to the brave people of Iran who say ‘no’ to the Islamic Republic.”

The Eastern European gang’s alleged involvement in the plot to kill Alinejad goes back to at least July 2022.

According to a superseding indictment unsealed on Friday, Amirov, a leader of the Eastern European gang, was initially tasked with undertaking the plot.

Amirov then directed Omarov, another leader of the group based in Eastern Europe, who in turn directed Mehdiev, described as a member of the gang, to murder Alinejad.

According to court documents, the Thieves-in-Law gang engages in murders, kidnappings, assaults and extortions. Its members typically identify themselves with tattoos and other displays of eight-pointed stars.
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The United States is deeply concerned about recent violence in Israel and the West Bank and said there is an urgent need for all parties to de-escalate in the region, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday.

The United States is aware of reports that at least 10 Palestinians, including militants, were killed in an Israeli Defense Forces counterterrorism operation and deeply regrets civilian loss of life, Kirby told reporters.

“We believe there’s an urgent need here for all parties to de-escalate, to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank,” Kirby said.

The Israeli operation targeted the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Washington recognizes the security challenges that Israel, and well as the Palestinian Authority, faces every day, he said, adding that the United States condemns terrorist groups anywhere who are planning attacks against civilians.

“I also deeply regret the loss of innocent life and the injuries that that were incurred by civilians,” Kirby said.

“We’re certainly deeply concerned by this escalating cycle of violence in the West Bank. As well as by the rockets that had been apparently launched from Gaza.”

Over the past few days, the Biden administration has been closely engaged with both the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority on this recent violence, he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans a visit to the region next week, from Sunday through Tuesday. Kirby said he will discuss a range of issues, including the need for calm in the West Bank.
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Asian Americans in California, already on edge over a wave of hate crimes against their communities, are taking small comfort from the fact that the suspected perpetrators of the past week’s two mass shootings were Asian Americans themselves.

“Simply because this person happens to be Asian American from Monterey Park, doesn’t mean he wasn’t also targeting community members,” said community advocate Manjusha Kulkarni in reference to the man accused of fatally gunning down 11 people at a dance hall on Saturday night.

“He knew that there was a large Lunar New Year celebration, and he came armed,” continued Kulkarni, executive director of the Los Angeles-based AAPI Equity Alliance, in an interview with VOA.

Monterey Park Councilman Henry Lo agreed that his community will take time to get over the shock of that mass killing and another two days later near San Francisco.

“We will need everyone’s support as we begin the long road to recovery from this awful trauma,” he told VOA’s Mandarin Service.

The first shooting happened at a dance hall in Monterey Park, a largely Asian American suburb east of Los Angeles. All 11 victims were Asian Americans. The suspect shot and killed himself.

The second shooting was hundreds of miles north in Half Moon Bay, an idyllic small coastal town with nurseries and restaurants.

Seven people, five Chinese citizens and two Latinos, were killed at two Northern California mushroom farms. Police have identified the suspect as a worker at one of the nurseries.

The two tragic events took place during the Lunar New Year season, which is normally a time of rebirth, says state assemblyman Phil Ting, whose district includes part of San Francisco.

It’s a time “looking towards prosperity and good fortune,” he said. “To have these incidents that are impacting Asian American farmworkers here and then 11 Asian Americans down in Los Angeles is really just the worst kind of news we can ever have.”

About one in six Californians are Asian Americans. In recent years, many of them feel like they’re under threat, said California Governor Gavin Newsom at a recent press conference in Half Moon Bay.

“I’m also mindful that we saw hate crimes go up 177% against Asians last year,” he said. “We have to do more.”

The most recent shootings are different from the anti-Asian crimes committed by non-Asians. The two suspects in the mass shootings are themselves Asian Americans.

While the suspects’ motives are still under investigation, some believe mental health could be a factor. Asian American advocates highlight the fact that life in the U.S. for an immigrant can be challenging.

“The social and linguistic isolation they may have, the lack of mental health and community support that they need,” said Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University. “The easy availability of assault weapons. These trends demonstrate that Asian Americans face a lot of issues as minorities.”

James Zarsadiaz, an associate professor of history at University of San Francisco, grew up in East Los Angeles.

Filipino and Chinese, Zarsadiaz says he wants to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit.

“It’s hard to really feel fully present and enjoy the festivity when you know that tragedy has hurt and has impacted the community,” he said. “And even though it’s one place, it does impact pretty much all of Asia America because, again, these are very familiar and intimate spaces and during a very personal and family-oriented time.”

Organizers of the San Francisco Lunar New Year parade, scheduled for February 4, said this week they would meet with city leaders and police to implement additional safety measures. The parade attracts thousands of spectators.

Calla Yu with the Mandarin Service contributed to this story. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wraps up a 10-day visit to Africa on Saturday that included stops in Senegal, Zambia and South Africa, where she met Friday with philanthropists on climate change.

Throughout her trip, Yellen sought to underscore the importance of the growing and youthful continent, saying “the United States’ strategy toward Africa is centered around a simple recognition: that Africa will shape the future of the global economy.”

The administration of President Joe Biden has emphasized its commitment to the region, rolling out a new policy for sub-Saharan Africa in August and hosting the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December.

Analysts say the reengagement comes after Africa received limited attention from former president Donald Trump’s administration, and as leading trade partner China continues to dominate the region economically, while Russia is working to strengthen military and diplomatic ties.

Yellen arrived shortly after a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to South Africa, which has taken an officially neutral stance on the war in Ukraine and is planning to host controversial joint naval drills with Russia and China off the coast of the city of Durban next month.

Bob Wekesa, head of the African Center for the Study of the United States in Johannesburg, said the timing of the visits shows both Russia and the U.S. are trying to woo Africa.

“Is it a coincidence that both Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and U.S. Treasure Secretary Janet Yellen have done their Africa trip early in the year, coinciding, in fact almost meeting together?” Wekesa said. “In my view it’s not a coincidence in itself because there’s a very big geopolitical battle that has just intensified over the couple of months since first Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Brooks Spector, associate editor at South African newspaper the Daily Maverick and a retired American diplomat, echoed that assessment.

“The competition now, on the African continent between Russia and the United States and China and the United States has become much more visible and in many ways much more significant than it was a decade or so ago,” Spector said. “With Russia of course, the challenge is geopolitical and security, whereas with China the challenge is largely economic and trade-oriented.”

Yellen has used her trip to criticize both Beijing and Moscow. Her remarks in Zambia about China being a “barrier” to the heavily indebted nation’s debt restructuring drew ire from Beijing. She has also blamed “Russia’s brutal war” for raising energy prices and causing food insecurity in Africa.

The U.S. is South Africa’s third-largest trading partner. Yellen has announced a new joint task force aimed at preventing wildlife trafficking, pledged to increase trade and investment, and praised the country for aiming to tackle its current power crisis and reliance on coal through a “just energy transition” partnership with the U.S.

But so far on her South Africa visit, Yellen — who had a closed-door meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa — has refrained publicly from talking about the upcoming naval exercises or Pretoria’s stance on Ukraine.

Spector said the topics — not usually ground covered by a treasury secretary — would likely have come up “regardless of the brief.”

“When Secretary Yellen arrived, she had an entire basket of issues to be tackled, a whole range of things, some of which transcended the more normal topics that a treasury secretary might have wanted to talk about, including, not surprisingly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

When South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana met with Yellen on Thursday, he noted her visit was a “momentous occasion” because no U.S. treasury secretary had visited in eight years.

Asked whether the minister’s remarks could be seen as a criticism of the U.S. for ignoring Africa, David Feldmann, the mission spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, told VOA, “We refer you to the South African finance minister for any interpretation of what he said.”

The South African treasury did not reply to a request for comment.

To underscore the importance of the continent, it’s expected that both U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden will visit this year. 
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South Korean concerns about the U.S. nuclear umbrella are expected to be a major focus of U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s upcoming trip to Seoul.

Austin, who arrives in the South Korean capital on Monday, is expected to meet President Yoon Suk Yeol, according to South Korean media.

Earlier this month, Yoon made headlines when he said South Korea could demand the redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons, or even develop its own nuclear arms, if its security situation with North Korea worsens.

Yoon later walked back those comments. However, the situation underscores growing South Korean worries over North Korea’s quickly expanding nuclear arsenal, as well as questions about the long-term defense commitment of its ally, the United States.

Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told a briefing Thursday that Austin’s trip will highlight “our commitment to the region,” saying the U.S. commitment to South Korea remains “rock solid.”

Austin’s visit will be closely watched to see whether he addresses Yoon’s comments about nuclear weapons.

“He might make some rhetorical gesture indicating gently in public, and certainly much more strongly behind the scenes, that it would be undesirable for South Korea to have its own nuclear deterrent,” said Mason Richey, an associate professor at South Korea’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

“But I think he would do so in a way that would not be intended to publicly irritate South Korea or to call into question South Korea’s sovereignty or autonomy,” Richey said.

Instead, Austin may highlight U.S.-South Korean efforts to expand defense cooperation, he added.

In recent months, Washington and Seoul have increased joint military drills and agreed to the more frequent deployment of U.S. strategic assets, such as nuclear-capable bombers and aircraft carriers, to the region around the Korean Peninsula.

But Yoon, a conservative who embraces a more aggressive approach to North Korea, thinks more should be done to keep up with North Korean nuclear advancements.

As a presidential candidate, he briefly embraced the possibility of the United States returning tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea.

The United States removed its nuclear weapons from South Korea in the early 1990s. Instead, South Korea is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, under which Washington vows to use all its capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend its ally.

Yoon last month suggested such ideas are outdated and that South Korea needs a bigger role in its own defense. As an alternative, Yoon said he envisioned new levels of nuclear cooperation that would have the same effect as nuclear sharing.

North Korea advancements

South Korea’s concerns are driven in large part by North Korea’s rapid expansion of its nuclear weapons program.

In 2022, North Korea launched more than 90 missiles, including short-range weapons designed to evade South Korea’s missile defense systems and long-range weapons that could hit the U.S. mainland.

In a year-end speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to “exponentially” increase production of nuclear warheads and to develop yet another new intercontinental ballistic missile.

U.S. and South Korean officials have also warned for months that North Korea has finished preparations for another nuclear test.

The developments have rattled many in Seoul, who fear the United States may not come to the defense of South Korea if North Korea has the ability to destroy U.S. cities.

Possible steps

A growing number of Washington-based analysts agree that the United States should shore up its defense commitment to South Korea.

In a report last week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the allies should consider “tabletop planning exercises for the possible redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea.”

While the CSIS report said the United States should not under current circumstances deploy tactical nuclear weapons, it suggested other steps, including the creation of a “framework for joint nuclear planning,” similar to a U.S. arrangement with NATO.

The report mentioned the possibility of “the continuous presence in the region of either U.S. submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles or strategic bombers. It also said South Korea could acquire dual-capable aircraft, which can conduct nuclear or conventional missions.

It is not clear whether U.S. and South Korean officials are discussing any of those proposals.

But Sydney Seiler, the national intelligence officer for North Korea at the U.S. National Intelligence Council, on Thursday praised the CSIS report as “excellent,” saying it laid out a “very persuasive case … on how to maintain deterrence in this environment.”

“It was compelling,” Seiler said during an online forum hosted by CSIS. “And we go back to [the fact that] deterrence has worked for seven decades,” he said. “Why would deterrence not work going forward?” 
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The second consecutive quarter of economic growth that the government reported Thursday underscored that the nation isn’t in a recession despite high inflation and the Federal Reserve’s fastest pace of interest rate hikes in four decades.

Yet the U.S. economy is hardly in the clear. The solid growth in the October-December quarter will do little to alter the widespread view of economists that a recession is very likely sometime this year.

For now, the economy expanded at a 2.9% annual rate in the fourth quarter, though some of the underlying figures weren’t as healthy. Consumer spending, for example, grew at a slower pace than in the previous quarter, and business investment was weak. Last quarter’s growth was fueled by factors that won’t likely last. These include companies’ restocking of inventories and a drop in imports, which meant that more spending went to U.S.-made goods.

Increased borrowing rates and still-high inflation are expected to steadily weaken consumer and business spending. Businesses will likely pare expenses in response, which could lead to layoffs and higher unemployment. And a likely recession in the United Kingdom and slower growth in China will erode the revenue and profits of American corporations. Such trends are expected to cause a U.S. recession sometime in the coming months.

Still, there are reasons to expect that a recession, if it does come, will prove to be a comparatively mild one. Many employers, having struggled to hire after huge layoffs during the pandemic, may decide to retain most of their workforces even in a shrinking economy.

Six months of economic decline is a long-held informal definition of a recession. Yet nothing is simple in a post-pandemic economy in which growth was negative in the first half of last year but the job market remained robust, with ultra-low unemployment and healthy levels of hiring. The economy’s direction has confounded the Fed’s policymakers and many private economists ever since growth screeched to a halt in March 2020, when COVID-19 struck and 22 million Americans were suddenly thrown out of work.

Inflation, the economy’s biggest threat last year, is now showing signs of steadily declining. Used and new cars are becoming less expensive. Price increases for furniture, clothes and other physical goods are slowing.

Last year, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate seven times, from zero to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. The Fed’s policymakers have projected that they will keep raising their key rate until it tops 5%, which would be the highest level in 15 years. As borrowing costs swell, fewer Americans can afford a mortgage or an auto loan. Higher rates, combined with inflated prices, could deprive the economy of its main engine — healthy consumer spending.

Fed officials have made clear that they’re willing to tip the economy into a recession if necessary to defeat high inflation, and most economists believe them. Many analysts envision a recession beginning as early as the April-June quarter this year.

So what is the likelihood of a recession? Here are some questions and answers:

Why do many economists foresee a recession?

They expect the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes and high inflation to overwhelm consumers and businesses, forcing them to slow their spending and investment. Businesses will likely also have to cut jobs, causing spending to fall further.

Consumers have so far proved remarkably resilient in the face of higher rates and rising prices. Still, there are signs that their sturdiness is starting to crack.

Retail sales have dropped for two months in a row. The Fed’s so-called beige book, a collection of anecdotal reports from businesses around the country, shows that retailers are increasingly seeing consumers resist higher prices.

Credit card debt is also rising — evidence that Americans are having to borrow more to maintain their spending levels, a trend that probably isn’t sustainable.

More than half the economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics say the likelihood of a recession this year is above 50%.

What are some signs that a recession may have begun?

The clearest signal would be a steady rise in job losses and a surge in unemployment. Claudia Sahm, an economist and former Fed staff member, has noted that since World War II, an increase in the unemployment rate of a half-percentage point over several months has always signaled a recession has begun.

Many economists monitor the number of people who seek unemployment benefits each week, a gauge that indicates whether layoffs are worsening. Weekly applications for jobless aid actually dropped last week to a historically low 190,000. Employers continue to add many jobs, causing the unemployment rate to fall in December to 3.5%, a half-century low, from 3.7%.

Any other signals to watch for?

Economists monitor changes in the interest payments, or yields, on different bonds for a recession signal known as an “inverted yield curve.” This occurs when the yield on the 10-year Treasury falls below the yield on a short-term Treasury, such as the three-month T-bill. That is unusual. Normally, longer-term bonds pay investors a richer yield in exchange for tying up their money for a longer period.

Inverted yield curves generally mean that investors foresee a recession that will compel the Fed to slash rates. Inverted curves often predate recessions. Still, it can take 18 to 24 months for a downturn to arrive after the yield curve inverts.

Ever since July, the yield on the two-year Treasury note has exceeded the 10-year yield, suggesting that markets expect a recession soon. And the three-month yield has also risen far above the 10-year, an inversion that has an even better track record at predicting recessions.

Who decides when a recession has started?

Recessions are officially declared by the obscure-sounding National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of economists whose Business Cycle Dating Committee defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.”

The committee considers trends in hiring. It also assesses many other data points, including gauges of income, employment, inflation-adjusted spending, retail sales and factory output. It puts heavy weight on a measure of inflation-adjusted income that excludes government support payments like Social Security.

Yet the NBER typically doesn’t declare a recession until well after one has begun, sometimes for up to a year.

Does high inflation typically lead to a recession?

Not always. Inflation reached 4.7% in 2006, at that point the highest in 15 years, without causing a downturn. (The 2008-2009 recession that followed was caused by the bursting of the housing bubble).

But when it gets as high as it did last year — it reached a 40-year peak of 9.1% in June — a downturn becomes increasingly likely.

That’s for two reasons: First, the Fed will sharply raise borrowing costs when inflation gets that high. Higher rates then drag down the economy as consumers are less able to afford homes, cars and other major purchases.

High inflation also distorts the economy on its own. Consumer spending, adjusted for inflation, weakens. And businesses grow uncertain about the future economic outlook. Many of them pull back on their expansion plans and stop hiring. This can lead to higher unemployment as some people choose to leave jobs and aren’t replaced.
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U.S.-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that it misled regulators about two crashes of its 737 Max planes.

Boeing was accused of hiding design flaws that caused the plane crashes in 2018 and 2019.

The judge will decide whether to appoint a special monitor to examine safety issues at Boeing.

Family members of the passengers who died in the crashes have asked that a previous settlement between Boeing and the Justice Department be thrown out.

They say they were not informed about the secret negotiations between Boeing and the federal agency that allowed Boeing to avoid prosecution.

After its agreement with the Justice Department, Boeing established a multibillion-dollar fund to pay for fines, victim compensation and compensation to airlines whose Max jets were grounded after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed hundreds of people.

Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
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