Month: April 2023

The United States is deploying more troops at its base in Djibouti as it considers whether to evacuate diplomats from Sudan, where a power struggle between two military factions has led to days of violence that has killed more than 330 people.

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, spoke Friday with VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara about the ongoing fighting in Sudan. He also previewed next week’s White House state visit by President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF PATSY WIDAKUSWARA: I’d like to start with Sudan. What’s the latest on the evacuation of American diplomats and the deployment of troops to the base in Djibouti?

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS JOHN KIRBY: There’s been no decision to evacuate our diplomats. We’re still focused right now on pre-positioning appropriate military capabilities nearby in the region, not in Sudan, just in case there is a decision made to evacuate our embassy.

The bottom line is the situation on the ground in Khartoum is not good. The violence continues, the fighting continues despite both sides calling or urging the other to abide by cease-fires. There’s still a lot of violence inside Khartoum, and so it’s a very tenuous, very dangerous situation. And as we’ve said, if you are an American citizen, and you didn’t take our warning to leave Sudan and particularly Khartoum, you need to take care of your own safety and security, shelter in place, find a place to stay where you can stay safe and not be moving around.

VOA: So there’s no evacuation for American citizens at this point?

KIRBY: There is no expectation that there’s going to be a U.S. government evacuation of American citizens. That remains the case right now.

VOA: Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has called the leaders of both warring parties to push for a cease-fire. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. The U.S. has very limited leverage because we have pulled U.S. assistance since the coup in Sudan in 2021. Which countries in the region are you reaching out to, to help push for a cease-fire?

KIRBY: We’re talking to the African Union, we’re talking to the Arab League. Clearly, we’re talking bilaterally with other nations around Sudan in the region who obviously have a stake in making sure that peace and security, stability has a chance there in Sudan. And yes, we are reaching out directly. You’ve mentioned Secretary Blinken, but there are other lines of communication reaching out directly with the leaders on both sides there, General [Abdel Fattah] Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces and General [Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo] “Hemedti” of the RSF and to urge them to put down their arms, actually put in place a sustainable cease-fire so that humanitarian aid and assistance can get to the people that need it.

VOA: Would the U.S. administration consider any kind of punitive measures to push for a cease-fire?

KIRBY: I don’t have any muscle movements to speak to right now. We are focused right now on communicating to both sides they need to put their arms down, they need to stop the fighting. We need to get the ability for people to get access to food and water and medicine and again, to have a discussion about a transition to civilian authority.

VOA: And how concerned are you that this would turn into a proxy war, where outside groups such as the Wagner Group that’s already in the region might take opportunity from the chaos?

KIRBY: Obviously, we don’t want to see this conflict expand or broaden, and we certainly wouldn’t want to see additional firepower brought to bear; that will just continue the violence and continue to escalate the tensions.

VOA: I want to move on to the South Korean president’s visit next week. One of the leaks showed that there is concern from the South Koreans that President [Joe] Biden might push President Yoon [Suk Yeol] to supply military weapons, munitions particularly to Ukraine. Has this leak complicated the visit at all?

KIRBY: We are very excited about having our second state visit be the Republic of Korea. President Biden and President Yoon have a terrific relationship. We as a nation have a great relationship with the Republic of Korea, our South Korean allies. And it is an alliance. We have actual alliance commitments with South Korea. And there’s an awful lot on the agenda and it won’t just be Ukraine.

But there’s an awful lot of other things on the agenda, everything from high technology to climate change to certainly threats inside the Indo-Pacific region. Obviously, North Korea will be on the agenda. There’s a lot to talk about. And this is a terrific relationship.

VOA: President Yoon said he may be open to providing military support to Ukraine under some circumstances. Is this something that President Biden will push President Yoon for?

KIRBY: This isn’t about pushing South Korea at all. It’s about having a meaningful conversation about items of mutual shared concern and interest and certainly the war in Ukraine is something that South Korea shares that concern with. I’ll let President Yoon speak to what he is or isn’t willing to do.

We have said from the very beginning that what a nation decides to do with respect to supporting Ukraine is up to them to decide. It’s a sovereign decision. The whole idea of supporting Ukraine, this whole fight is about sovereignty. It’s about independence. And how ironic and hypocritical would it be for the United States to dictate terms to a sovereign nation about what they should or shouldn’t do.

VOA: Can we expect any kind of announcements in terms of extended deterrence, increasing U.S. strategic assets, any kind of joint operations of nuclear scenarios in the region?

KIRBY: We routinely talk to the South Koreans about the extended deterrence. I’m not going to get ahead of the president or any specific announcements or anything going forward.

VOA: On semiconductors, now that China cannot access U.S. technology but also Japanese and Netherlands technology for semiconductors, they are reaching out to South Korean companies. Is this something that the president will also discuss?

KIRBY: I have no doubt that they’ll talk about high technology and the need to keep improving, preserving, maintaining resilient supply chains when it comes to semiconductors. But I won’t get ahead of the conversation.

VOA: You mentioned today’s meeting in Ramstein, Germany, which marks one year that the Defense Contact Group has been meeting. Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin said this morning that the focus will be on air defense, ammunition and logistics. What does that say in terms of where we are in the war right now and the strategy going forward?

KIRBY: We have evolved the capabilities that we are providing Ukraine … as the war itself has evolved over time. Here we are past a year. And we know that in the spring when the weather improves, and it’s already starting to improve, that we can expect the Russians to want to go on the offensive in some areas, and we don’t know exactly where or how they’ll do that. But we want to make sure that the Ukrainians are able to better defend themselves against that and if they choose offensive operations of their own, that they’ve got the capabilities to conduct those.

And you heard Secretary Austin talk about air defense, talk about armor capabilities because we believe that one of the things and they say they need to be better at is combined arms warfare, which is maneuver warfare in open terrain. That means, that requires armor, that requires artillery, that requires some air defense. But he also talked about logistics because that’s really the lifeblood of any army in the field, is how do you keep it in the field? How do you sustain it? How do you get him spare parts and food and water and fuel, the kinds of things that they need to maintain operations in a continuous way? So that’s got to be front and center as well.

VOA: Last question, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg this week said that Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. At this point, do you see Ukraine to be closer toward becoming a NATO member?

KIRBY: Nothing’s changed about our support for the Open Door Policy of NATO. Nothing’s changed about that. We continue to support an open door for NATO. But we’ve also said that any conversation about coming into the alliance has got to be a conversation between the nation in question and the alliance itself.

VOA: But do you see that Ukraine itself has improved on the criteria that it must meet?

KIRBY: Our focus right now with respect to Ukraine is making sure that they can beat back the Russian aggression. That they can be successful on the battlefield so that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, if and when he’s ready to negotiate, he can be successful at the table. That’s our focus. We’ll let the secretary-general speak for the alliance.
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American citizens told to shelter in place
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday preserved access to the abortion drug mifepristone while a lawsuit challenging the use of the drug plays out in lower courts.

The high court issued a brief on Friday evening granting emergency requests from the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, to continue to allow women to access the drug. The ruling puts on hold a preliminary injunction from a federal judge in Texas, who earlier this month ordered restrictions on the abortion drug.

Two justices on the nine-member court — conservatives Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — dissented from the decision.

The court had set a deadline for itself of midnight Friday to either approve the Biden administration’s request — to keep the drug available while the administration challenges a lower court ruling — or allow limited access to the drug to take effect.

The lower court ruling in question was issued April 7 by a federal judge in Texas after a coalition of anti-abortion groups and doctors argued the U.S. drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, improperly approved mifepristone in 2000 and did not fully assess its risks and benefits.

The ruling, which strictly limits availability of the drug, was appealed, and while an appeals court halted a portion of the ruling that would have invalidated the FDA approval, it left the limits on the drug’s availability in place.

The case is expected to be further appealed and could eventually end up being decided by the Supreme Court. Friday’s high court ruling makes it likely that access to mifepristone will continue at least into next year as the appeals play out.

Used in half of all abortions in US

Mifepristone is used in about half of all abortions nationwide. It has been used by as many as 5 million women since it was first approved in 2000, and major medical organizations say it has a strong safety record. The drug is also commonly used to help manage miscarriages.

Currently, the drug can be used by women to end pregnancies in the first 10 weeks, without a surgical procedure. It is available through the mail without an in-person visit to a doctor.

At the time the lower court ruling was made restricting access to the drug, President Joe Biden said in a statement the judge substituted his own judgment for that of the FDA, the expert agency responsible for approving drugs.

Biden said if the ruling is allowed to stand, “there will be virtually no prescription approved by the FDA that would be safe from these kinds of political, ideological attacks.”

Fight follows reversal of Roe v. Wade

The judge who made the ruling, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, was appointed by former President Donald Trump, as were the judges on the appeals court that maintained limits on the availability of the drug.

The fight over mifepristone comes after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court last year overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The court ruled it is now up to individual states to decide whether abortion should be legal or not.

The FDA has in recent years made it easier to use mifepristone, including in 2016 approving its use to 10 weeks of pregnancy, up from seven, and in 2021 allowing it to be distributed by mail in states that allow access.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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China on Friday did not reciprocate U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s appeal for the world’s two biggest economies to resume official communications. In a speech detailing the Biden administration’s economic priorities on China a day earlier, Yellen said the U.S. seeks constructive and fair economic ties with China without compromising its national security.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin responded by accusing the U.S. of now using technology and trade issues between the two economies as a tool and weapon “in the name of national security.”

“The U.S. has been building ‘small yards with high fences’ and pushing for decoupling and fragmenting industrial and supply chains,” Wang said at a daily briefing Friday. “The true intention of the U.S. is to take away the right to development from China and maintain U.S. supremacy for its selfish interests.”

In recent years Washington has focused on increasing controls over technology trade with China, arguing that some advanced technology such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing with substantial military applications should only be purchased from allied nations. Even more ordinary technology like the popular TikTok app is under scrutiny because of suspicions China’s government uses it for surveillance or other purposes.

Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said Beijing’s unenthusiastic reaction to Yellin’s statement is not a surprise.

“From the Chinese standpoint, they see the U.S. definition of national security as quite expansive and they don’t quite know what it will cover,” he told VOA Mandarin. “Their concern is that a lot of the national security measures do, in fact, limit their technology and limit their prospects for growth.”

David Dollar, an economist at the Brookings Institution, told VOA that China will be cautious in responding positively to the U.S. “as there are still a lot of hostile voices in the U.S.,” but “it is likely that sometime soon high-level dialogue between the two countries will resume.”

Earlier this month, senior officials from the Department of Commerce traveled to Beijing and Shanghai to lay the groundwork for a potential trip by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo later this year.

A call to resume dialogue

U.S.-China relations entered a downward spiral in recent years, with each side increasingly seeing the other as its top strategic and economic threat. President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last November in an effort to stabilize the relationship, but any progress was sidelined in February when the U.S. shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon over American territory. The incident led to the cancellation of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China, and delayed Yellen’s planned visit to Beijing.

In her Thursday speech at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Yellen said that the U.S. does not seek to “decouple our economy from China’s.”

“A full separation of our economies would be disastrous for both countries. It would be destabilizing for the rest of the world. Rather, we know that the health of the Chinese and U.S. economies is closely linked. A growing China that plays by the rules can be beneficial for the United States,” she said.

She added that she plans to travel to China “at the appropriate time.”

The Brookings Institution’s Dollar said Yellen’s softer tone shows the administration’s willingness to resume dialogue with Beijing on global issues.

“The U.S. wants to reestablish dialogue on economic issues, especially global concerns such as climate change, developing country debt problems, and macroeconomic policy coordination,” he told VOA Mandarin.

Hufbauer with PIIE described Yellen’s speech as having “a friendly tone without much substance.”

“It basically amounts to an invitation to China to talk with her,” he told VOA.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow specializing in U.S. economic competitiveness at the Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA that the speech was also geared toward U.S. policymakers.

“I think this speech was an effort to reconcile the two contradictory elements at the heart of the current U.S. policy towards China, which sees China as a security rival but potentially as an economic partner or a worst competitor,” he told VOA.

Some have criticized Yellen’s soft tone with China. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican, described Yellen’s wish to resume conversation with China as “out of touch with reality.”

“There can be no ‘healthy relationship’ with communists who want America to fail,” he tweeted.
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Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Violence erupts in Sudan, UN chief calls for truce

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate halt to fighting in Sudan on Thursday and appealed for a three-day cease-fire to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to enable trapped civilians to seek safety and supplies.

As of Friday, street battles were reportedly continuing. Guterres said a truce for Eid al-Fitr must be the first step to a permeant cease-fire and a return to the transition to civilian rule. Rival generals in a power struggle have unleashed fighting in the capital and across the country, which has killed more than 400 people so far, many of them civilians.

UN Chief Calls for Cease-Fire in Sudan to Mark End of Ramadan

UN complains to US over spying reports

The United Nations lodged a formal complaint Monday with the United States over reports that Washington spied on Secretary-General Guterres and other senior U.N. officials. The revelation came to light as part of a trove of classified military documents allegedly leaked online by a 21-year-old U.S. air national guardsman, who was arrested and charged last week. News outlets reported that the U.S. may have monitored Guterres’ private communications, including with Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. The U.S. government has not commented on the substance of the leaked documents.

UN Expresses Concern to US Over Spying Reports

Talk of Taliban recognition draws condemnation

Remarks by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed about possible future recognition of the Taliban drew criticism this week from U.S. officials as well as Afghan activists and politicians. Speaking at Princeton University, Mohammed said a meeting is being organized in Qatar in early May of special envoys on Afghanistan from different countries. “And out of that, we hope that we’ll find those baby steps to put us back on the pathway to recognition [of the Taliban], a principled recognition,” Mohammed said. “Is it possible? I don’t know. [But] that discussion has to happen. The Taliban clearly want recognition, and that’s the leverage we have.” The U.N. has rejected as “unlawful” the Taliban’s latest edict banning Afghan women from working for the international organization. It follows other restrictions on their education, work and movements.

Top UN Official Proposes Meeting to Discuss Recognition of Taliban

The U.N. quickly moved to clarify Mohammed’s remarks, saying the recognition issue was “clearly in the hands of the member states” and that she was reaffirming the need for an internationally coordinated approach. Mohammed has been outspoken on upholding the rights of Afghan women and girls and personally met with the Taliban’s supreme leader earlier this year.

US Rules Out Talks on Afghan Taliban Recognition at UN-Hosted Meeting

No consensus on UN Security Council on what to do about DPRK

A senior United Nations official warned Monday that North Korea is hitting “significant milestones” in its five-year military development plan, including its launch last week of a reported solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). U.N. deputy political chief Khaled Khiari added that the lack of Security Council unity is not helping the situation, as North Korea is “unconstrained.” Russia and China have repeatedly blocked action on the council to address numerous ballistic missile launches.

As UN Security Council Dithers, North Korea Progresses on WMD

Decline in vaccination rates jeopardizes children’s health

The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, warns that many children are likely to die from vaccine-preventable diseases because of a decline in routine immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also found that 67 million children, nearly half of them on the African continent, have missed out on one or more vaccinations due to disruptions in immunization services in the three years since the pandemic began.

UNICEF Warns Many Children in Danger of Dying from Preventable Diseases

In brief

— Despite a decrease in fighting in Yemen, the country’s health sector remains at risk of collapse, the World Health Organization warned Friday. Nearly half the country’s health facilities are closed or only partially functioning. The WHO says the health crisis is compounded by a rise in outbreaks of measles, diphtheria, dengue, cholera and polio. There are also 540,000 children under the age of five who are suffering severe acute malnutrition with a direct risk of death. The WHO has been supporting Yemen’s health sector but, due to a shortage of funds, has faced reductions affecting millions of people.

— There were three attacks on peacekeepers in Mali in the past week. Two Bangladeshi peacekeepers were injured when an IED targeted their logistics convoy Tuesday in the Mopti region. Days before that, two peacekeepers from Togo were injured when their convoy was also hit by an IED near Douentza. On Wednesday, the U.N. mission in Mali reported an explosion targeting an empty fuel tank belonging to a contractor. No injuries were reported. For the past nine years, MINUSMA has been the U.N.’s deadliest mission for peacekeepers. In 2022, 32 “blue helmets” were killed in deliberate attacks.

— The new special representative of the secretary-general for Haiti, María Isabel Salvador, has arrived in Port-au-Prince, where she met Prime Minister Ariel Henry. She is scheduled to deliver her first briefing to the Security Council on April 26.

Good news

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday that the warring sides in Yemen released nearly a thousand detainees over four days. The development comes a month after an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore ties. Saudi Arabia has backed Yemen’s internationally recognized government, while Iran supports the Houthi rebels who seized Yemen’s capital in 2014.

Nearly 1,000 Detainees Released in Yemen

What we are watching next week

As part of its Security Council presidency this month, Russia’s foreign minister will chair two meetings next week. On Monday, Sergey Lavrov will preside over a debate on “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the U.N. Charter” and on Tuesday the regular debate on the Middle East. It will be his second visit to the U.N. since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. His first was during the General Assembly high-level week in September, during which Lavrov said the Kremlin had “no choice” but to launch its “special military operation” in Ukraine. It also comes just weeks before the May 18 deadline Russia has set for the U.N. to meet its conditions to extend a deal that facilitates the exports through the Black Sea of Ukrainian grain and Russian grain and fertilizer. Moscow has complained for months that it is not benefiting from the 9-month-old deal. It will certainly be a focus of discussion between Lavrov and U.N. chief Guterres when they meet next week.
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U.S. homeland security officials are launching what they describe as two urgent initiatives to combat growing threats from China and expanding dangers from ever more capable, and potentially malicious, artificial intelligence.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Friday that his department was starting a “90-day sprint” to confront more frequent and intense efforts by China to hurt the United States, while separately establishing an artificial intelligence task force.

“Beijing has the capability and the intent to undermine our interests at home and abroad and is leveraging every instrument of its national power to do so,” Mayorkas warned, addressing the threat from China during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

The 90-day sprint will “assess how the threats posed by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will evolve and how we can be best positioned to guard against future manifestations of this threat,” he said.

“One critical area we will assess, for example, involves the defense of our critical infrastructure against PRC or PRC-sponsored attacks designed to disrupt or degrade provision of national critical functions, sow discord and panic, and prevent mobilization of U.S. military capabilities,” Mayorkas added.

Other areas of focus for the sprint will include addressing ways to stop Chinese government exploitation of U.S. immigration and travel systems to spy on the U.S. government and private entities and to silence critics, and looking at ways to disrupt the global fentanyl supply chain.

AI dangers

Mayorkas also said the magnitude of the threat from artificial intelligence, appearing in a growing number of tools from major tech companies, was no less critical.

“We must address the many ways in which artificial intelligence will drastically alter the threat landscape and augment the arsenal of tools we possess to succeed in the face of these threats,” he said.

Mayorkas promised that the Department of Homeland Security “will lead in the responsible use of AI to secure the homeland and in defending against the malicious use of this transformational technology.”

The new task force is set to seek ways to use AI to protect U.S. supply chains and critical infrastructure, counter the flow of fentanyl, and help find and rescue victims of online child sexual exploitation.

The unveiling of the two initiatives came days after lawmakers grilled Mayorkas about what some described as a lackluster and derelict effort under his leadership to secure the U.S. border with Mexico.

“You have not secured our borders, Mr. Secretary, and I believe you’ve done so intentionally,” the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Republican Mark Green, told Mayorkas on Wednesday.

Another lawmaker, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, went as far as to accuse Mayorkas of lying, though her words were quickly removed from the record.

Mayorkas on Friday said it might be possible to use AI to help with border security, though how exactly it could be deployed for the task was not yet clear.

“We’re at a nascent stage of really deploying AI,” he said. “I think we’re now at the dawn of a new age.”

But Mayorkas cautioned that technologies like AI would do little to slow the number of migrants willing to embark on dangerous journeys to reach U.S. soil.

“Desperation is the greatest catalyst for the migration we are seeing,” he said.

FBI warning

The announcement of Homeland Security’s 90-day sprint to confront growing threats from Beijing followed a warning earlier this week from the FBI about the willingness of China to target dissidents and critics in the U.S.

and the arrests of two New York City residents for their involvement in a secret Chinese police station.

China has denied any wrongdoing.

“The Chinese government strictly abides by international law, and fully respects the law enforcement sovereignty of other countries,” Liu Pengyu, the spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA in an email earlier this week, accusing the U.S. of seeking “to smear China’s image.”

Top U.S. officials have said they are opening two investigations daily into Chinese economic espionage in the U.S.

“The Chinese government has stolen more of American’s personal and corporate data than that of every nation, big or small combined,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told an audience late last year.

More recently, Wray warned of Chinese’ advances in AI, saying he was “deeply concerned.”

Mayorkas voiced a similar sentiment, pointing to China’s use of investments and technology to establish footholds around the world.

“We are deeply concerned about PRC-owned and -operated infrastructure, elements of infrastructure, and what that control can mean, given that the operator and owner has adverse interests,” Mayorkas said Friday.

“Whether it’s investment in our ports, whether it is investment in partner nations, telecommunications channels and the like, it’s a myriad of threats,” he said.
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Montana’s House speaker on Thursday refused to allow a transgender lawmaker to speak about bills on the House floor until she apologizes for saying lawmakers would have “blood on their hands” if they supported a bill to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, the lawmaker said.

Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who was deliberately misgendered by a conservative group of lawmakers demanding her censure after Tuesday’s comments, said she will not apologize, creating a standoff between the first-term state lawmaker and Republican legislative leaders.

Speaker Matt Regier refused to acknowledge Zephyr on Thursday when she wanted to comment on a bill seeking to put a binary definition of male and female into state code.

“It is up to me to maintain decorum here on the House floor, to protect the dignity and integrity,” Regier said Thursday. “And any representative that I don’t feel can do that will not be recognized.”

Regier said the decision came after “multiple discussions” with other lawmakers and that previously there have been similar problems.

Democrats objected to Regier’s decision, but the House Rules committee and the House upheld his decision on party-line votes.

“Hate-filled testimony has no place on the House floor,” Republican Rep. Caleb Hinkle, a member of the Montana Freedom Caucus that demanded the censure, said in a statement.

Zephyr said she stands by what she said about the consequences of banning essential medical care for transgender youth.

“When there are bills targeting the LGBTQ community, I stand up to defend my community,” Zephyr said. “And I choose my words with clarity and precision, and I spoke to the real harms that these bills bring.”

Regier also declined to recognize Zephyr on Thursday when she rang in to speak about another bill, which was unrelated to LGBTQ+ issues and seeks to reimburse hotels that provide shelter to victims of human trafficking.

“The speaker is refusing to allow me to participate in debate until I retract or apologize for my statements made during floor debate,” Zephyr said.

The issue came to a head Tuesday when Zephyr, the first transgender woman to hold a position in the Montana legislature, referenced the floor session’s opening prayer when she told lawmakers if they supported the bill, “I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

She had made a similar comment when the bill was debated in the House for the first time.

House Majority Leader Sue Vinton rebuked Zephyr on Tuesday, calling her comments inappropriate, disrespectful and uncalled for.

Later, the Montana Freedom Caucus issued its censure demand in a letter that called for a “commitment to civil discourse” in the same sentence in which it deliberately misgendered Zephyr. The caucus also misgendered Zephyr in a Tweet while posting the letter online.

“It is disheartening that the Montana Freedom Caucus would stoop so low as to misgender me in their letter, further demonstrating their disregard for the dignity and humanity of transgender individuals,” Zephyr said in a statement Wednesday.

Zephyr also spoke emotionally and directly to transgender Montanans in February in opposing a bill to ban minors from attending drag shows.

“I have one request for you: Please stay alive,” Zephyr said then, assuring them she and others would keep fighting and challenge the bills in court.

The legislature has also passed a bill stating a student misgendering or deadnaming a fellow student is not illegal discrimination, unless it rises to the level of bullying.

At the end of Thursday’s House session, Democratic Rep. Marilyn Marler asked that the House majority allow Zephyr to speak on the floor going forward.

“This body is denying the representative … the chance to do her job,” Marler said.

Majority Leader Vinton, before moving for adjournment, said: “I will let the body know that the representative … has every opportunity to rectify the situation.”

The House meets again Friday afternoon.
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Muslims in Minneapolis can now hear their call to prayer broadcast five times a day from mosques around the city, thanks to a new law. From Minneapolis, Mohamud Mascadde has the story, narrated by Salem Solomon.
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U.S.-made M1A1 Abrams tanks will arrive in Germany in May, and Ukrainians will start training on them soon after, according to senior military officials.

Thirty-one Abrams tanks will arrive at a base in Grafenwöhr, Germany, next month so that Ukrainians can start a 10-week course on how to operate the tanks. Additional force-on-force training and maintenance courses will be held at either Grafenwöhr or another base in Hohenfels, Germany, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.

The U.S.-led training will involve about 250 Ukrainians, and officials say 31 Abrams tanks will be delivered to Ukraine by the fall, which is much earlier than initially expected. 

The training tanks will not be the ones that will go to Ukraine as it fights against Russia’s invasion. Those are being refurbished in the United States and will go to the frontlines when they are ready, according to officials.

The news comes as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is hosting another meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Friday, where military leaders from more than 50 nations are focusing on the Ukrainian military’s armor, air defense and ammunition needs.

Austin is expected to announce that the Abrams will arrive in Germany in the coming weeks during a Friday press conference.

Speaking at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he first convened the group last April, Austin said the groups’ members had provided more than $55 billion in security assistance for Ukraine.

“More than a year later, Ukraine is still standing strong. Our support has not wavered, and I’m proud of the progress that we have made together,” he said.

In the past few months, members of the group have provided enough equipment and training to support nine additional armored brigades, according to Austin.

Abrams tanks, in particular, have been a long-awaited addition to the fight. The tank’s thick armor and 1,500-horsepower turbine engine make it much more advanced than the Soviet-era tanks Ukraine has been using since the war’s beginning.

The Biden administration announced in January that it would send a newer version of the Abrams tanks, known as M1A2, to Ukraine after they were procured and built, a process that could potentially take years.

In March, the administration pivoted to provide M1A1 Abrams tanks instead, in order to get the tanks “into the hands of the Ukrainians sooner rather than later,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at the time.

The U.K. was the first to promise Western-style tanks for Ukraine, sending its Challenger 2 tanks to aid in the fight. After the U.S. Abrams announcement in January, Germany announced it would provide Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow other allies with German tanks, such as Poland, to do the same.

Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov spoke to members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group Friday in order to update leaders on the state of the battlefield and Ukraine’s most urgent military needs. Moscow began a renewed offensive in Ukraine earlier this year that has stalled, and Kyiv is preparing for a massive counteroffensive that is expected to begin in the coming days or weeks.

The U.S. has now provided more than $35 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, which Austin called “an unprovoked and indefensible war of aggression.”

Some countries, including Estonia and Latvia, have donated more than 1% of their GDP to Ukraine’s defense.

Ahead of the meeting, Austin addressed the massive Pentagon leak of classified documents detailing sensitive intelligence on the war in Ukraine, Russian intelligence and intelligence gleaned from spying on allies.

Austin said he took the issue very seriously and would continue to work with “our deeply valued allies and partners.”

“I’ve been struck by your solidarity and your commitment to reject efforts to divide us. And we will not let anything fracture our unity,” he said.

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group has worked better than predicted in terms of maintaining supplies for Ukraine, showing Western resolve to face down Russian aggression and having “Ukraine’s back even without having forces on the battlefield,” according to Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The U.S. and allies have vowed to support Ukraine in defending its sovereign territory for “as long as it takes,” which O’Hanlon says may extend through all of 2024.

“I’m afraid that’s a distinct possibility,” he said.
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The Pentagon is positioning military forces near Sudan to help evacuate U.S. Embassy personnel in Khartoum, if needed, amid the explosion of violence between the African country’s two warring factions. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other leaders are pushing for a cease-fire until at least Sunday. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
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A Biden administration review said the chaotic August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was largely the result of policy decisions made by the Trump administration. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson spoke to House Foreign Affairs Committee members about next steps for oversight.
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President Joe Biden will formally announce his 2024 reelection campaign as soon as next week, three people briefed on the discussions said Thursday.

The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said they were not aware that a final decision on timing had been made, but that Biden had been eyeing Tuesday, April 25, four years to the day since the Democrat entered the 2020 race. The upcoming announcement is expected to be in the form of a video released to supporters.

Biden, 80, has repeatedly said he intends to run for a second term, but advisers say he has felt little need to jump into campaigning because he faces no significant opposition to his party’s nomination.

It’ll be a markedly different experience from four years ago, when Biden was written off by much of the political establishment until he consolidated support as the candidate Democrats believed was best positioned to defeat then-President Donald Trump while the coronavirus pandemic raged. This time around, he will have to juggle the challenge of running for reelection while also running the country.

Biden in recent months has been focused on implementing the massive infrastructure, technology investment and climate laws passed during his first two years in office and drawing a sharp contrast with Republicans as Washington gears up for a fight over raising the nation’s borrowing limit. Aides believe those priorities will burnish his image ahead of his reelection campaign.

The president will also need to contend with voter concerns about his fitness for the job. He has brushed aside those concerns, telling voters to “watch me,” and aides say he plans to mount a robust campaign ahead of what they expect to be a close general election owing to the country’s polarization, no matter who emerges as the GOP standard-bearer.

Biden has summoned top Democratic donors to Washington next week for what was expected to be a dinner with him and a strategy session with his chief political advisers.

The Washington Post first reported on the expected timing of the announcement.
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The United States has rejected discussions about recognizing Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership at a U.N.-hosted meeting scheduled for May 1-2.

“The intent and purpose of this meeting was never to discuss recognition of the Taliban, and any discussion at the meeting about recognition of the Taliban would be unacceptable,” a U.S. official told VOA on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The rebuttal came after U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed shared details of the planned meeting in Qatar, suggesting the recognition issue would be on the agenda.

“We hope that we will find those baby steps to put us back on the pathway to recognition … of the Taliban. In other words, there are conditions,” Mohammed told a seminar at Princeton University on Monday.

That discussion has to happen because Taliban authorities demand diplomatic recognition, and “that’s the leverage we have,” she stressed.

Doha meeting

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will host the two-day meeting in Doha of envoys from countries around the world, but the deliberations will not focus on recognition of the Taliban, his office reiterated Thursday.

“The point of the discussion, which will be held in a closed, private setting, is to build a more unified consensus on the challenges at hand,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters in New York.

“There’s a need to reinvigorate international engagement around the sort of common objectives that the international community has on Afghanistan. So, we consider it a priority to advance an approach-based pragmatism and principles to have a constructive engagement on the issue.”

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid demanded Thursday that the U.N. “fulfill its responsibility” toward the people of Afghanistan.

The “Islamic Emirate wants the recognition process to be completed soon. It will build mutual trust with world countries and help resolve all issues that can benefit regional security and stability,” Mujahid told VOA by phone. He used the official title of the Taliban government.

Mohammed’s remarks sparked a backlash from Western critics and self-exiled members of the Afghan diaspora, including rights activists and former government officials, citing restrictions the Taliban have imposed on women’s access to public life.

On Wednesday, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric attempted to explain Mohammed’s comments, saying the recognition issue was “clearly in the hands of the member states” and that she was reaffirming the need for an internationally coordinated approach.

“She was not in any way implying that anyone else but member states have the authority for recognition,” Dujarric said.

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly in December postponed for a second time a decision on whether to recognize the Taliban government by allowing its leaders to appoint their ambassador to the United Nations.

The Taliban seized power in August 2021 from the then-internationally backed Afghan government as U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew following 20 years of engagement in the country.

The Taliban’s men-only administration has since banned most female government employees from work and teenage girls from seeking education beyond grade six.

Afghan female staffers have recently been barred from working for the U.N. and nongovernmental organizations in a country where millions of families need urgent assistance.

The Taliban dismiss criticism of their governance, saying it aligns with Afghan culture and Islamic law.

Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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As the world’s largest official bilateral creditor, China should participate in meaningful debt relief for countries facing problems but has served for too long as a “roadblock” to necessary action, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a major speech on U.S.-China relations on Thursday.

Yellen said the United States expected China to make good its pledge to work constructively on issues such as debt relief and climate change, noting that delays in restructuring raised costs for both borrowers and creditors.

Speaking at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Yellen welcomed China’s recent provision of credible financing assurances for Sri Lanka, but said Washington continued to urge China’s “full participation” in providing debt treatments for Zambia, Ghana and other countries.

Yellen’s remarks came after global finance officials from creditor and debtor countries, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the private sector met in Washington last week on ways to accelerate long-stalled debt restructuring efforts. The IMF estimates that more than half of low-income countries are close to or already unable to service their debts.

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said on Friday that the new Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable had made “tangible progress” on debt restructuring issues. She said China and other participants had reached a common understanding that multilateral development banks could provide positive net flows to countries in need, instead of accepting outright reductions in debt levels.

China has long been unwilling to accept losses on loans unless private-sector creditors and multilateral development banks shoulder their share of the burden.

“China’s participation is essential to meaningful debt relief, but for too long it has not moved in a comprehensive and timely manner. It has served as a roadblock to necessary action,” Yellen said.

The United States and China — as the world’s largest economies — had a responsibility to work together to help emerging markets and developing countries facing debt distress, she said.

“China’s status as the world’s largest official bilateral creditor imposes on it the same inescapable set of responsibilities as those on other official bilateral creditors when debt cannot be fully repaid,” the Treasury secretary said.

Yellen said Washington was working with other stakeholders to improve the Group of 20’s Common Framework process for low-income countries and the overall debt treatment process, adding, “Solving these issues is a true test of multilateralism.”

She said the United States and China — the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases — also needed to work together to tackle climate change and called on Beijing to end overseas financing of unabated coal-fired power plants.
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