Month: October 2023

Former President Jimmy Carter is set to mark his 99th birthday on October 1 while in hospice care. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports on an outpouring of admiration and well wishes for the onetime peanut farmer and Georgia governor who promoted peace and fought tropical diseases after leaving the White House.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduling a vote Monday on a resolution that would authorize a one-year deployment of an international force to help Haiti quell a surge in gang violence and restore security so the troubled Caribbean nation can hold long-delayed elections.

The U.S.-drafted resolution obtained by The Associated Press on Saturday welcomes Kenya’s offer to lead the multinational security force. It makes clear this would be a non-U.N. force funded by voluntary contributions.

The resolution would authorize the force for one year, with a review after nine months.

The force would be allowed to provide operational support to Haiti’s National Police, which is underfunded and under-resourced, with only about 10,000 active officers for a country of more than 11 million people.

The resolution said the force would help built capacity of local police “through the planning and conduct of joint security support operations as it works to counter gangs and improve security conditions in Haiti.”

The force would also help secure “critical infrastructure sites and transit locations such as the airport, ports, and key intersections.”

The resolution authorizes the force to “adopt urgent temporary measures on an exceptional basis” to prevent the loss of life and help police maintain public safety. 

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.

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.

The Senegalese Navy said it had intercepted two wooden boats carrying 272 would-be migrants Friday 100 kilometers (60 miles) off the coast of the capital Dakar. 

Seven children and 16 women were among the passengers who were taken back to a navy base in Dakar, it said in an online post Saturday. 

It shared a photo of a brightly painted fishing vessel on the open ocean, overloaded with people with no shelter from the elements. 

Thousands of migrants brave the hundreds of miles of ocean separating Africa from Europe each year in a desperate search for a better life. Summer is the busiest period for crossings. 

At least 559 people died attempting to reach the Canary Islands in 2022, while 126 people died or went missing on the same route in the first six months of this year with 15 shipwrecks recorded, according to the International Organization for Migration. 

In August, only 37 survived after a migrant boat carrying 101 people from Senegal had been adrift in the ocean without fuel for weeks. 

American chemical manufacturer Albemarle Corporation has agreed to pay more than $218 million to settle allegations of bribing officials at state oil refineries in three Asian countries, the U.S. Justice Department announced Friday.

The North Carolina company admitted to using “third-party sales agents” and foreign employees to bribe officials to win contracts with state refineries in India, Indonesia and Vietnam, the department said.

The department said Albemarle received nearly $100 million in profits from the corrupt scheme.

Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the United States, it is illegal to bribe any foreign official in exchange for obtaining or retaining business. The FCPA is the main tool enforcement agencies use to police foreign bribery.

Both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the financial oversight body, were investigating the company for FCPA violations in connection with the bribery scheme.

“Corruption has no borders, but neither does justice,” Dena J. King, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said in a statement. “Companies are expected to adhere to the same ethical and legal standards whether they are doing business on U.S. soil or overseas.”

The Justice Department said it entered into a three-year nonprosecution agreement with Albemarle after the company voluntarily disclosed the alleged bribery to U.S. prosecutors.

Under a nonprosecution agreement, the Justice Department agrees not to prosecute a company in exchange for cooperation, payment of a fine and compliance with other requirements.

A spokesperson for Albemarle did not immediately return a request for comment.

According to the company’s admissions in connection with the settlement, the alleged bribery took place between 2009 and 2017, the Justice Department said.

In India, Albemarle used a third-party intermediary to do business with the country’s state-owned oil company by avoiding a blacklisting.

In Indonesia, the company enlisted another intermediary to do business with the state refinery even after being told Indonesian officials would have to be paid bribes.

And in Vietnam, Albemarle obtained contracts at two state-owned oil refineries through an intermediary sales agent, who requested increased commissions to pay bribes to officials.

As part of the nonprosecution agreement with the Justice Department, Albemarle agreed to pay a penalty of about $98 million and administrative forfeiture of about $99 million.  The Justice Department said it would credit about $82 million of the forfeiture to the SEC.

King said the agreement with Albemarle “underscores our commitment to fight corruption affecting the United States no matter where it occurs.”

Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department has prioritized fighting corporate corruption, announcing several major changes to beef up enforcement policies and practices.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in October on the sidelines of China’s Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

The trip will be Putin’s first known travel abroad since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in March over alleged war crimes, but the second time the two have met in person this year.

Analysts say the meeting will be an opportunity for the two leaders to bolster their countries’ relationship and to voice their shared grievances about U.S. leadership in global affairs.

“They’ll complain [about the U.S.], and they’ll stick to their talking points,” Sergey Radchenko, a China-Russia scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told VOA.

In remarks on Tuesday, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized governments that view foreign policy in terms of “democracy versus authoritarianism,” and urged the U.S. to host a more inclusive Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, summit in November.

When asked at a recent press conference about the upcoming meeting between Xi and Putin, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, “The leaders of China and Russia maintain close strategic communication.” Ning did not provide specifics about what will be discussed.

The press offices of China and Russia did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the meeting.

If the two leaders build on the themes of a September 20 meeting between China’s top diplomat and Putin, it is likely to be an opportunity for “deepening practical cooperation,” as described in a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs readout of the event in St. Petersburg.

Ukraine war challenges ‘no limits’ relationship

Experts said while the Sino-Russian partnership has its strengths and will last for the foreseeable future, the two sides have not always seen eye to eye on key issues, including the war in Ukraine.

Unlike NATO members, Russia and China have no formal obligation to defend each other, though China announced early last year that its relationship with Russia would have “no limits.”

That statement came shortly before Putin waged war on Ukraine. Beijing has since “walked back that language,” Radchenko said. “We no longer hear about a ‘no limits’ partnership.”

As the top buyer of Moscow’s fossil fuels, Beijing has played an outsize role in helping Putin’s government survive Western embargoes and continue its invasion of Ukraine, said Joseph Nye Jr., professor emeritus of Harvard Kennedy School.

Even so, Nye told VOA that China has not officially provided Russia with weapons for its war amid fears of European sanctions, which, in his words, proves “there actually are limits [to China-Russia relations].”

Early last year, Beijing released a 12-point peace proposal but has not pressured Russia for an immediate resolution to the conflict.

“The Chinese peace plan for Ukraine is not really an impartial peace plan,” Nye said. “It’s a way to appear to be a peacemaker in the eyes of the Europeans, which is a significant Chinese market.”

However close Xi and Putin are, their relationship is not strong enough for China to risk losing its soft power in Europe by publicly supporting Russia’s war, said Ali Wyne, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group.

“Even as China strengthens its relationship with Russia, I don’t think that China wants to abandon its relationship with the West. Xi’s going to have to strike a balancing act,” Wyne said.

China’s European partners are important bargaining chips, experts said, especially ahead of the APEC summit, where there could be a sideline meeting between Xi and President Joe Biden.

When asked at a recent briefing what the U.S. hopes Xi will communicate to Putin when the two meet in October, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, “I would like to see every leader who goes and speaks to President Putin reinforce that [every nation’s territorial sovereignty] is inviolable.”

Wyne said Xi could ask for assurances from Putin that the war will end sooner rather than later.

“China,” Wyne said, “recognizes that the longer the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on, the more the Sino-Russian relationship undercuts China’s ability to advance its diplomacy in the West.”

Xi and Putin’s differences beyond Ukraine

For more than a decade, Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, has enhanced the Chinese Communist Party’s ties across Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, Oceania and Latin America. Nye described BRI as “a mixed bag” of economic aid, export subsidies and public works projects in developing nations with the goal of buying influence.

Experts said Russia’s foreign policy is simpler: offering mercenaries to autocrats abroad in exchange for natural resources, such as diamonds.

“The Chinese have money to spend, and the Russians don’t. The Russians can support mercenaries because that’s fairly cheap, but they’re not going to build roads and dams and airports [in other countries],” Nye said.

China has invested an estimated $1 trillion in BRI and can compete against American interests on nearly every continent. Analysts said Moscow can only access that level of power by cozying up to Beijing.

But the Sino-Russian partnership still has its fair share of contradictions and infighting, according to Nye and Radchenko.

For one, China considers former Soviet countries in Central Asia to be under its purview.

“[Moscow is] happy to see [BRI] projects that weaken the Americans,” Nye said. “On the other hand, the Russians are not all that keen on BRI projects in Central Asia, which they regard as their sphere of influence.”

But Radchenko does not anticipate “any serious rifts between Russia and China over Central Asia in the coming years.” Putin and Xi, he said, would rather smooth over their disagreements than jeopardize their larger aim of combating U.S. foreign policy.

Ahead of October’s Belt and Road forum, Putin has denied that BRI is at all in conflict with Moscow’s interests. “[BRI] harmonizes [Russia and China’s] ideas to create a vast Eurasian space. … We are quite in sync,” TASS, a Russian state-run news outlet, quoted Putin as saying last week.

“Russia needs China far more than the other way around,” Wyne said, explaining Putin’s willingness to compromise with Xi.

Even with the underlying differences described by analysts, “dialogues like this [the Xi-Putin meeting] are how China and Russia have been able to navigate … frictions,” Radchenko said.

Slovak liberal party Progressive Slovakia (PS) led a parliamentary election Saturday, initial exit polls showed, potentially blocking former leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico from returning his party to power after he pledged to end military aid for neighboring Ukraine. 

Progressive Slovakia was seen winning 23.5% of the vote, ahead of 21.9% for three-time prime minister Fico’s SMER-SSD party, an exit poll by Focus agency for TV Markiza showed. 

A second exit poll by Median agency for public broadcaster RTVS showed the liberal party winning 19.97% of the vote, ahead of 19.09% for Fico’s party in the nation of 5.5 million. 

The PS party has advocated maintaining Slovakia’s strong backing for Ukraine and would likely follow a liberal line within the European Union on issues such as majority voting to make the bloc more flexible, green policies and LGBTQ+ rights. 

A government led by Fico and his SMER-SSD party would mean Slovakia’s joining Hungary in challenging the European Union’s consensus on support for Ukraine, just as the bloc looks to maintain unity in opposing Russia’s invasion. 

The leading party to emerge from the election is due to get a first shot at forming a government, with no party projected to win an outright majority. 

Forming a new government will hinge on results for over half a dozen smaller parties, from libertarians to far-right extremists. 

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.