Day: September 5, 2023

ECCAS suspends Gabon’s membership following the military’s removal of its democratically elected president. An Afghan father worries about feeding his children after the WFP announces cuts. And how one US company is hoping to win the race toward nuclear fusion technology.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

At a refugee encampment in eastern Chad, Sudanese children say Janjaweed militias in Darfur have made them orphans in recent months. As media and rights organizations continue to report atrocities, reporter Henry Wilkins speaks to the children who are left to fend for themselves in a foreign country with little help.

The world will know whether democracy “lives or dies” by the end of 2024, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa warned Tuesday afternoon at an event at the National Press Club in Washington.

The battle for truth — and for journalism — is at the center of that fight, the journalist added.

“If we don’t have integrity of facts, we cannot have integrity of elections,” she said.

The primary reason behind this crisis: “The tech-enabled Armageddon” that the world is currently facing, Ressa said, which has been turbocharged by the advent of generative artificial intelligence. “Technology is insidiously manipulating us.”

“The prize is our attention. This is the new economic system — the attention economy,” Ressa said. “We are Pavlov’s dogs, experimented on in real time, with disastrous consequences.”

Studies show that false information spreads online faster than the truth — a problematic incentive structure for which tech platforms are to blame, and one that is having severe consequences for democracy around the world, said Ressa, who is the founder and CEO of the Filipino online news site Rappler.

“If you have no facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality, no rule of law — we have no democracy,” she said. That process “is the core of the way our world has been turned upside down.”

Global freedoms have declined for 17 years in a row, Freedom House said in a March report.

Assaults on press freedom are also part of the crisis facing democracy, and they’re a facet with which Ressa is particularly well acquainted.

For years, the Philippine government has consistently targeted Ressa with lawsuits, all in retaliation for Rappler’s critical reporting. In January, Ressa and Rappler were acquitted of tax evasion, but she still faces three other criminal cases, including a cyber-libel conviction.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” she said Tuesday. “I had to go all the way to the Philippine Supreme Court to be with you today. They have to approve my travel plans.”

Rappler is still fighting a potential shutdown, said Ressa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.

Last week, the Russian government formally labeled her co-laureate, Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, a “foreign agent.”

Muratov, who led the renowned investigative Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta said Monday he will mount a legal challenge to fight the designation. His media outlet announced he will temporarily step aside from his role as editor-in-chief while he takes his case through the courts.

Information warfare around the world has been at play for years. For example, in 2014 “we saw information operations that literally changed Philippine history in front of our eyes,” Ressa said, transforming former President Ferdinand Marcos from a kleptocrat and a ruthless dictator into the best leader the Philippines has ever had.

“Technology makes us forget — changes the narrative,” she said. “If you can make people believe lies are facts, then you can control them.”

The dawn of generative artificial intelligence — “which is neither artificial nor intelligent,” Ressa quipped — is making the whole situation worse.

“It has no guardrails, with the responsibility of protecting us left in the hands of — actually I think they’re largely men — who are rushing ahead for profit,” she said.

Digital rights and disinformation experts have raised alarms about how generative AI can be used to more easily and quickly disseminate disinformation online.

But using generative AI isn’t always a bad thing, Ressa added. For instance, Rappler has used ChatGPT to help write biographies about political candidates, which staff members then checked for accuracy.

The fight for facts has sweeping implications for all other problems facing the world, like climate change, Ressa said.

“We can’t solve the global existential problems if we don’t win the battle for facts,” she said. “The future is in our hands. This is it.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A former leader of the right-wing Proud Boys group, Enrique Tarrio, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Tuesday for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the longest sentence so far in the case.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly imposed the sentence on Tarrio, 39, of Miami, for his role in the riot by then-President Donald Trump’s supporters. His lawyers said he would appeal.

Tarrio had been convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in planning the Capitol riot that sought to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s defeat of Trump in an election Trump falsely claimed was tainted by widespread fraud.

Tarrio’s lawyers said his absence from Washington on Jan. 6, the result of another judge’s earlier order, meant that he had no “direct influence” on the riot.

But in imposing the sentence, the judge said: “Mr. Tarrio was the ultimate leader of that conspiracy. Mr. Tarrio was the ultimate leader, the ultimate person who organized, who was motivated by revolutionary zeal.”

Prosecutors said Tarrio had remained in touch with the Proud Boys group and monitored their actions.

“He was on a tier of his own,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe said, adding Tarrio was a uniquely influential figure among the Proud Boys.

Prosecutors had asked Kelly to sentence Tarrio to 33 years behind bars, saying he helped direct the attack from Baltimore. His attorneys had asked for no more than 15 years.

Kelly last week sentenced another far-right Proud Boys leader, Ethan Nordean, to 18 years. Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes in May was also sentenced to 18 years.

In court on Tuesday, Tarrio said he was sorry for his actions. “I am extremely ashamed and disappointed,” he said about violence against law enforcement on that day, adding: “What happened on Jan. 6 was a national embarrassment.”

More than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. At least 630 have pleaded guilty and at least 110 have been convicted at trial.

Five people, including a police officer, died during or shortly after the riot, and more than 140 police officers were injured. Damage to the Capitol was in the millions of dollars.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was tapped to investigate broader efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has charged Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, for trying to keep himself in power.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday she does not expect any revisions to U.S. tariffs on China imposed during President Donald Trump’s administration until an ongoing review is completed by the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office.

“I don’t think the (Biden) administration will make any changes until that review is completed,” Raimondo told CNBC. It is not clear when USTR will conclude the review.

Trump, a Republican, imposed tariffs in 2018 and 2019 on thousands of imports from China valued at some $370 billion at the time, after a “Section 301” investigation found that China was misappropriating U.S. intellectual property and coercing U.S. companies to transfer sensitive technology to do business.

“We didn’t put those tariffs in place. We don’t think they make a whole of sense in many cases,” Raimondo, part of the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden, said on Tuesday. “I think the Trump tariffs could have been much more strategic and that’s why we are doing this four-year review.”

The review by USTR is “to see if (the tariffs) are effective,” she said.

But Raimondo added, “China’s practices of subsidizing their businesses have hurt U.S. workers so we need a level playing field.” Last week, she criticized various new Chinese restrictions on U.S. businesses operating in China.

China’s commerce minister last week urged Chinese companies investing in the U.S. to be given “equal treatment” and called U.S. 301 tariffs on Chinese imports “discriminatory,” when he met with Raimondo in Beijing.

The Trump administration used Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a statute aimed at combating trade partners’ unfair practices, to launch the tariffs in 2018 and 2019.

The prosecution in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial on Tuesday urged state senators to convict the Republican on corruption-related charges and remove him for using the power of his office for his personal benefit, while his lawyer derided the case as “a lot of nothing.”

Paxton’s lawyer sought to paint the impeachment effort, which fellow Republicans have spearheaded in the state legislature, as an attempt by his political enemies to thwart the will of Texas voters who elected him three times to the post – even after the allegations of wrongdoing were publicly known.

Paxton, also under investigation by the FBI, entered pleas of not guilty as the impeachment trial got underway in the Texas Senate. After senators voted down his pretrial motions to dismiss the charges, Paxton, rose on the Senate floor to hear the 16 articles of impeachment he faces, but did not speak as his lawyer announced his pleas. Paxton, 60, did not return to the Senate chamber after a lunch break.

An ally of former President Donald Trump, Paxton has been suspended from his post since the Texas House of Representatives voted in May to impeach him on corruption charges, including aiding a wealthy political donor and persecuting whistleblowers from his office who accused him of wrongdoing. Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature.

Trump has strongly backed Paxton. The political dynamics in a Paxton trial pitting Republicans against one another echo divisions in the party at the national level as Trump seeks to regain office. The former president leads a crowded field of candidates vying to become the party’s nominee to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 U.S. election despite facing criminal charges in four separate cases.

“This whole case is a whole lot of nothing,” Tony Buzbee, Paxton’s main defense lawyer, told senators in his opening statement.

Buzbee promised to present evidence knocking down every allegation. He portrayed Paxton as the innocent target of establishment Republicans – whose power in Texas has waned as party figures focused on hot-button issues such as curbing abortion and transgender rights and securing the border have gained power.

Republican state Representative Andrew Murr, delivering the prosecution’s opening statement, said the witnesses he would present are diehard conservatives who were Paxton’s hand-chosen top aides but were forced to report him to the FBI because of “Paxton’s slow creep of corruption.”

“Mr. Paxton has been entrusted with great power. Unfortunately, rather than rise to the occasion, he’s revealed his true character and, as the overwhelming evidence will show, he’s not fit to be the attorney general for the state of Texas,” Murr said.

Murr’s team called as its first witness Jeff Mateer, who is a top legal officer for First Liberty Institute, a conservative religious rights group; the former No. 2 official in Paxton’s office; and one of the whistleblowers.

Lawyers from Paxton’s camp repeatedly objected to Mateer’s testimony Tuesday, saying his accounts of discussions with his former boss were private. Most of those objections were overruled.

As attorney general, Paxton backed powerful oil and gas interests and pursued restrictions on abortion and transgender rights. He has led Republican state opposition to the policies of Democratic presidents, and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat.

A two-thirds majority vote in the 31-member state Senate would be needed to remove Paxton from office. The last impeachment trial of a statewide officeholder in Texas was in 1917.

Thirty of the 31 senators will serve as jurors. Paxton’s wife, Angela, is a Republican senator but is not acting as a juror due to concerns over conflict of interest.

The Senate has 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats. If all the Democrats vote to convict Paxton as expected, nine Republicans would need to join them to reach the two-thirds majority required to permanently remove him from office.

Senators rejected a motion to dismiss all the charges by a vote of 24-6, and voted down additional motions to throw out individual charges.

Paxton’s impeachment was triggered by his request that House lawmakers approve a $3.3 million settlement he reached with four former staff members who accused him of abuse of office and were subsequently fired. State lawmakers did not do so.

The House voted 121-23 to impeach him on 20 articles that accused him of improperly aiding real estate developer and political donor Nate Paul, conducting a sham investigation against the whistleblowers in his office, and covering up wrongdoing in a separate federal securities fraud case, among other offenses.

The Senate’s impeachment rules committee set aside four charges involving Paxton’s private business dealings that House charges called obstruction of justice and false statements in official records. The Senate could dismiss those charges or hold a separate trial on them.

Talks between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ended without an agreement to restart a deal under which Russia provided safe passage to ships moving grain across the Black Sea, including ships leaving from Ukrainian ports.

The deal, struck last year, was meant to safeguard the supply of agricultural commodities from Ukraine and Russia to global markets, where they account for a large percentage of the supply of wheat, corn, sunflower oil and other staple foods. Russia is waging war against Ukraine, including attacks on its Black Sea ports, making the region hazardous for shipping.

While it was in place, starting in July 2022, the deal allowed more than 1,000 vessels carrying 32.9 million metric tons of grain to transit the Black Sea safely. Russia announced this July that it would not renew the arrangement, causing an immediate halt to grain shipments.

Cutting off shipments from Ukraine threatens to worsen a global food crisis that has seen the price of staple foodstuffs soar, making it difficult for people in many developing countries to feed themselves, and straining the aid budgets of global relief agencies.

Putin’s demands

Speaking at a press conference in the Russian city of Sochi, where he and Erdogan met on Monday, Putin said Russia would only return to the deal if the West fulfilled what he said were its obligations under the agreement, including a promise to lift any sanctions on the export of Russian food and fertilizers. He said that sanctions remain in place that are keeping Russian agricultural exports from making it to global markets.

The large number of economic penalties imposed on Russia by Western countries because of its invasion of Ukraine do not include sanctions on food and fertilizer exports. However, other sanctions, including the severing of Russian banks from the global payments system and a refusal to allow Western companies to insure Russian ships, have sharply curtailed grain exports.

Putin has described this situation as a Western violation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

“We are not against this deal. We are ready to immediately return to it as soon as the promises made to us are fulfilled. That’s all,” Putin said. “So far, no obligations toward Russia have been fulfilled.”

The U.S. and other Western countries deny Putin’s claim that they have failed to live up to the terms of the deal. When Russia announced its decision to back out in July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement that read, in part, “Despite Russia’s claims, the U.N. has facilitated record Russian exports of food, coordinating with the private sector and with the U.S., E.U., and U.K. to clarify any concerns raised by Russia. As we have consistently made clear, no G7 sanctions are in place on Russian food and fertilizer exports. Russia unfortunately does not contribute to the World Food Program, and its exports focus on higher income countries, not the world’s poorest.”

Erdogan optimistic

Erdogan, who helped broker the original deal in 2022, said he still believes it is possible to restart the agreement.

“We believe that we will reach a solution that will meet the expectations in a short time,” he told reporters at the news conference on Monday.

The Turkish leader also called on Ukraine to moderate its approach to the agreement.

“Ukraine needs to especially soften its approaches in order for it to be possible for joint steps to be taken with Russia,” Erdogan said.

He did not specify the kind of changes in Ukraine’s approach he was recommending.

Also on Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed Erdogan’s comments, saying that Kyiv is willing to talk but would not bow to what he described as Russian blackmail.

He told reporters that if Ukraine makes concessions to Russia now, the Kremlin will only demand further concessions in the future.

Argument over impact

Both Russia and the Western countries demanding a restart of the grain deal use data from the U.N.-affiliated Black Sea Grain Initiative-Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul to support their version of the deal’s importance.

Russian officials dispute Western claims that Putin is weaponizing food and disproportionately affecting poor countries, arguing that the United Nations’ own data shows that 80% of grain exports that shipped while the deal was in place went to the world’s high-income and upper-middle-income nations. Western officials point to data from the same source, showing that 57% of the grain went to developing countries.

The discrepancy is largely explained by the fact that the U.N. classifies China as both a developing nation and an upper-middle-income nation. Grain shipments to China accounted for 24% of the shipments allowed under the deal.

Relief agencies clear

Among aid organizations around the world, there is little dispute that the impact of the suspension of the deal will be extremely negative for the global poor, both by pushing prices paid by end-consumers higher in the near term and by reducing supply in the longer term.

An analysis by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, published after Russia withdrew from the deal, warned that in addition to making existing grain more expensive to ship and thus more costly for global consumers, the high transportation costs will reduce farmers’ income, making them likely to plant less grain in the future.

“The reduced production also poses risks for global markets. With global grain stocks at low levels and little rebuilding this current year, prices will remain volatile and responsive to potential production shortfalls,” the group found. “Thus, a diminished Ukraine leaves a smaller buffer if major global producers fall short.”

Out of all the motions, requests, and appeals that Donald Trump has filed since his criminal indictments started coming down, none of those filings have managed to delay Trump’s scheduled trial dates by even so much as a single day. This isn’t some surprising development; it’s just how these things work.

Criminal defendants can’t just flood the court with nuisance filings and expect to benefit from it. The only way Trump could meaningfully stall his trial would be if prosecutors didn’t care when it got to trial anyway. And since these prosecutors do indeed care, Trump has no power here. Trump’s trials were always going to take place well before the 2024 election. The prosecutors involved chose their indictment timeframes based on knowing how much time they’d need to safely get these cases to trial well before the election.

Now that Trump has gotten stuck with a March 2024 trial date in federal court for trying to overthrow the 2020 election, he’s vowed to appeal his trial date as well. The tricky part: that’s not even a real thing. Trump can file an appeal in court over his trial date, and I can file an appeal in court over the fact that I’m not taller than I am, and we both have the same odds of getting our way.

Of course once you flat admit that Trump can’t do anything to delay his trial date, you’re taking some of the drama out of it. How can you milk the scary “Trump is going to magically get away with it all” narrative for ratings if you’re admitting that he’s going to be tried and convicted well before the election?

But it’s good to see that some of the mainstream media is indeed admitting that Trump is indeed going to be stuck with his trials taking place before the election. Well, mostly. This weekend the Washington Post wrote an article titled “Why Trump’s vow to appeal his D.C. trial date probably won’t work.” Nothing in the article supports the “probably” disclaimer; instead the article explains why it definitely won’t work.

But strangely worded headlines aside, it’s good to see the media accurately acknowledging that, yes, Donald Trump will go on trial well before the 2024 election – and that he does not have some kind magic “delay” wand.

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