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JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER, China — China launched a three-member crew to its orbiting space station on Thursday as part of its ambitious program that aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030.  The Shenzhou-18 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China atop a Long March 2-F rocket at 8:59 p.m. (1259 GMT).  The spacecraft's three-member crew will relieve the Shenzhou-17 team, which has been staffing China's Tiangong space station since last October.  The China Manned Space Agency, or CMSA, held a send-off ceremony — complete with flag-waving children and patriotic music — for the Shenzhou-18 crew earlier on Thursday, as the three astronauts prepared to enter the spacecraft.  The trio is made of Commander Ye Guangfu, 43, a veteran astronaut who took part in the Shenzhou-13 mission in 2021, and fighter pilots Li Cong, 34, and Li Guangsu, 36, who are spaceflight rookies.    They are expected to reach the space station about six-and-a-half hours after liftoff.  China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely because of U.S. concerns over the Chinese military's involvement in the program. This year, the Chinese station is slated for two cargo spacecraft missions and two manned spaceflight missions.  The Shenzhou-18 crew will spend about six months on the space station. They will conduct scientific tests, install space debris protection equipment on the station, carry out payload experiments, and popularize science education, among other things, according to Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the CMSA.  Lin also said China was working toward eventually offering access to its space station to foreign astronauts and space tourists.  "We will accelerate the research and promotion of the participation of foreign astronauts and space tourists on flights on China's space station," he said in a press conference Wednesday.  The country is planning a mission to bring back samples from Mars around 2030 and three lunar probe missions over the next four years. It also wants to put astronauts on the moon by 2030.  China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, becoming the third country after the former Soviet Union and the U.S. to put a person into space using its own resources.  The U.S. space program is believed to still hold a significant edge over China's due to its spending, supply chains and capabilities. However, China has broken out in some areas, bringing samples back from the lunar surface for the first time in decades and landing a rover on the less explored far side of the moon.  The U.S. aims to put a crew back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025 as part of a renewed commitment to crewed missions, aided by private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Juba, South Sudan — South Sudanese farmers who have relied on United Nations agencies operating in that country now say they are afraid of losing a ready market for their produce should the U.N. follow through on its threat to scale down operations in the world's youngest nation. This comes after the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom expressed concerns about Juba's decision to impose taxes on some commodities purchased by the U.N. The United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan — UNMISS — has already scaled down its security operations in South Sudan. U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan Nicholas Haysom says Juba's move to enforce taxes on various services offered by the U.N. in South Sudan will lead to severe consequences, including cuts in aid and other humanitarian support. "Our concern is that the authorities have blocked our fuel, and we are unable to implement our mandate, including important elements, which affect and support South Sudanese — including the delivery of aid and food to vulnerable communities," he said. A joint statement by the United States, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom accused Juba of imposing taxes on a range of approvals and fees, contrary to international practice and to South Sudanese laws. These include the E-Petroleum Accreditation Permit, customs charges, the electronic cargo tracking note, the laboratory test on food rations, and the security escort fee. The U.N. warns this move has forced them to scale down operations in South Sudan, including security patrols, as a direct response to the action. "We have reached an agreement that the blocking of these vehicles is unlawful, and that they should be released as soon as possible," Haysom said. He warned that the ripple effect will be felt far and wide. So far, more than 60-thousand people are losing access to health services after the U.N. stopped airdrop exercises. South Sudan relies heavily on the U.N. for humanitarian aid. Amos Valerio is the chairperson of the Gitikiri farmer cooperative in Western Equatoria state that supports local farmers by connecting them with a ready market. One of their key markets is the World Food Program, which has been buying farm produce from local farmers and then taking this food to millions of South Sudanese in refugee camps across the country. "The fear we have right now is that if the U.N. withdraws from South Sudan, we will not have any partner again,” Valerio said. “We encourage the government to restore the U.N. to continue helping farmers and to continue with their activities in South Sudan.” Louise Wilson Mbiro, a farmer from Gitikiri Boma in Western Equatoria state, said she fears losing her biggest buyer of maize seeds. If the WFP leaves, farmers will not be able to sell the products they have already produced and those they were going to produce, she said, adding that the WFP’s presence and support encouraged farmers to produce more.  Before the WFP started buying their seeds, Mbiro said life was very difficult, and she could only sell one kilogram of maize at 5,000 South Sudanese pounds, which was not helping at all. But when WFP came, she said farmers could sell all their products at once, and get money in bulk, which was something that never used to happen. Currently, Mbiro said, she can sell 35 bags, and make 1 million South Sudanese pounds. Albino Akol Atak, South Sudan’s minister of humanitarian assistance and disaster management, said the government is trying to find a way to remove the taxes on the U.N.  "We are considering that as the contribution of [the] government of South Sudan to what they [the U.N.] are doing is exempt. Their operations including importation of some humanitarian asserts and any other equipment that are to be used to deliver services to the people of South Sudan.” Akol Atak said the exemption is part of the government's contribution to humanitarian assistance to its people.  But the U.N. says its fuel trucks are still being held up at various depots and the border. Unless the vehicles are released, Haysom said in a statement, the U.N. will stop most of its activities in South Sudan, including the support for vulnerable communities like refugees. The U.N. currently plays a leading role in ensuring stability in South Sudan as the country gears up for its first-ever general election in December.

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WASHINGTON — The nation's economy slowed sharply last quarter to a 1.6% annual pace in the face of high interest rates, but consumers — the main driver of economic growth — kept spending at a solid pace. Thursday's report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy's total output of goods and services — decelerated in the January-March quarter from its brisk 3.4% growth rate in the final three months of 2023. A surge in imports, which are subtracted from GDP, reduced first-quarter growth by nearly 1 percentage point. Growth was also held back by businesses reducing their inventories. Both those categories tend to fluctuate sharply from quarter to quarter. By contrast, the core components of the economy still appear sturdy. Along with households, businesses helped drive the economy last quarter with a strong pace of investment. The import and inventory numbers can be volatile, so "there is still a lot of positive underlying momentum,'' said Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics. The economy, though, is still creating price pressures, a continuing source of concern for the Federal Reserve. A measure of inflation in Friday's report accelerated to a 3.4% annual rate from January through March, up from 1.8% in the last three months of 2023 and the biggest increase in a year. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose at a 3.7% rate, up from 2% in fourth-quarter 2023. From January through March, consumer spending rose at a 2.5% annual rate, a solid pace though down from a rate of more than 3% in each of the previous two quarters. Americans' spending on services — everything from movie tickets and restaurant meals to airline fares and doctors' visits — rose 4%, the fastest such pace since mid-2021. But they cut back spending on goods such as appliances and furniture. Spending on that category fell 0.1%, the first such drop since the summer of 2022. The state of the U.S. economy has seized Americans' attention as the election season has intensified. Although inflation has slowed sharply from a peak of 9.1% in 2022, prices remain well above their pre-pandemic levels. Republican critics of President Joe Biden have sought to pin responsibility for high prices on Biden and use it as a cudgel to derail his re-election bid. And polls show that despite the healthy job market, a near-record-high stock market and the sharp pullback in inflation, many Americans blame Biden for high prices. Last quarter's GDP snapped a streak of six straight quarters of at least 2% annual growth. The 1.6% rate of expansion was also the slowest since the economy actually shrank in the first and second quarters of 2022. The economy's gradual slowdown reflects, in large part, the much higher borrowing rates for home and auto loans, credit cards and many business loans that have resulted from the 11 interest rate hikes the Fed imposed in its drive to tame inflation. Even so, the United States has continued to outpace the rest of the world's advanced economies. The International Monetary Fund has projected that the world's largest economy will grow 2.7% for all of 2024, up from 2.5% last year and more than double the growth the IMF expects this year for Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada. Businesses have been pouring money into factories, warehouses and other buildings, encouraged by federal incentives to manufacture computer chips and green technology in the United States. On the other hand, their spending on equipment has been weak. And as imports outpace exports, international trade is also thought to have been a drag on the economy's first-quarter growth. Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF's managing director, cautioned last week that the "flipside″ of strong U.S. economic growth was that it was "taking longer than expected" for inflation to reach the Fed's 2% target, although price pressures have sharply slowed from their mid-2022 peak. Inflation flared up in the spring of 2021 as the economy rebounded with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, causing severe supply shortages. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made things significantly worse by inflating prices for the energy and grains the world depends on. The Fed responded by aggressively raising its benchmark rate between March 2022 and July 2023. Despite widespread predictions of a recession, the economy has proved unexpectedly durable. Hiring so far this year is even stronger than it was in 2023. And unemployment has remained below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s. Inflation, the main source of Americans' discontent about the economy, has slowed from 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.5%. But progress has stalled lately. Though the Fed's policymakers signaled last month that they expect to cut rates three times this year, they have lately signaled that they're in no hurry to reduce rates in the face of continued inflationary pressure. Now, a majority of Wall Street traders don't expect them to start until the Fed's September meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

NEW YORK — New York's highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with "egregious" improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren't part of the case. "We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes," the court's 4-3 decision said. "The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial." The state Court of Appeals ruling reopens a painful chapter in America's reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. His accusers could again be forced to relive their traumas on the witness stand. The court's majority said "it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant's character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them." In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was "whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative," and said the Court of Appeals was continuing a "disturbing trend of overturning juries' guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence." "The majority's determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability," Singas wrote. Weinstein, 72, has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison following his conviction on charges of criminal sex act for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013. He will remain imprisoned because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles on charges involving one of the women who testified in New York. Weinstein's lawyers argued Judge James Burke's rulings in favor of the prosecution turned the trial into "1-800-GET-HARVEY." The reversal of Weinstein's conviction is the second major #MeToo setback in the last two years, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court decision to throw out Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction. Weinstein's conviction stood for more than four years, heralded by activists and advocates as a milestone achievement, but dissected just as quickly by his lawyers and, later, the Court of Appeals when it heard arguments on the matter in February. Allegations against Weinstein, the once powerful and feared studio boss behind such Oscar winners as "Pulp Fiction" and "Shakespeare in Love," ushered in the #MeToo movement. Dozens of women came forward to accuse Weinstein, including famous actresses such as Ashley Judd and Uma Thurman. His New York trial drew intense publicity, with protesters chanting "rapist" outside the courthouse. Weinstein is incarcerated in New York at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany. He maintains his innocence. He contends any sexual activity was consensual. Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala argued before the appeals court in February that Burke swayed the trial by allowing three women to testify about allegations that weren't part of the case and by giving prosecutors permission to confront Weinstein, if he had testified, about his long history of brutish behavior. Aidala argued the extra testimony went beyond the normally allowable details about motive, opportunity, intent or a common scheme or plan, and essentially put Weinstein on trial for crimes he wasn't charged with. Weinstein wanted to testify, but opted not to because Burke's ruling would've meant answering questions about more than two-dozen alleged acts of misbehavior dating back four decades, Aidala said. They included fighting with his movie producer brother, flipping over a table in anger and snapping at waiters and yelling at his assistants. "We had a defendant who was begging to tell his side of the story. It's a he said, she said case, and he's saying 'that's not how it happened. Let me tell you how I did it,'" Aidala argued. Instead, the jurors heard evidence of Weinstein's prior bad behavior that "had nothing to do with truth and veracity. It was all 'he's a bad guy.'" Aidala also took issue with Burke's refusal to remove a juror who had written a novel involving predatory older men, a topic the defense lawyer argued too closely resembled the issues in Weinstein's case. A lawyer for the Manhattan district attorney's office, which prosecuted the case, argued that the judge's rulings were proper and that the extra evidence and testimony he allowed was important to provide jurors context about Weinstein's behavior and the way he interacted with women. "Defendant's argument was that they had a consensual and loving relationship both before and after the charged incidents," Appellate Chief Steven Wu argued, referring to one of the women Weinstein was charged with assaulting. The additional testimony "just rebutted that characterization completely." Wu said Weinstein's acquittal on the most serious charges — two counts of predatory sexual assault and a first-degree rape charge involving actor Annabella Sciorra's allegations of a mid-1990s rape — showed jurors were paying attention and they were not confused or overwhelmed by the additional testimony. The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named; Sciorra has spoken publicly about her allegations. The Court of Appeals agreed last year to take Weinstein's case after an intermediate appeals court upheld his conviction. Prior to their ruling, judges on the lower appellate court had raised doubts about Burke's conduct during oral arguments. One observed that Burke had let prosecutors pile on with "incredibly prejudicial testimony" from additional witnesses. Burke's term expired at the end of 2022. He was not reappointed and is no longer a judge. In appealing, Weinstein's lawyers sought a new trial, but only for the criminal sexual act charge. They argued the rape charge could not be retried because it involves alleged conduct outside the statute of limitations.

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In the Solomon Islands – officials are counting ballots in key national elections that were held on April 17. It’s the first poll since the strategic Pacific country signed a security pact with China. And who wins may well dictate whether the Solomons continues to draw closer to Beijing or Washington. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. Charley Piringi and Bakhtiyar Zamanov contributed.

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.

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.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday announced it has finalized rules targeting carbon, air and water pollution from power plants that it says could cut over 1 billion metric tons from carbon emissions by 2047 even as demand for electricity grows. The Environmental Protection Agency tightened a proposal to slash carbon emissions from existing coal and new gas plants, and updated and finalized long-standing rules to reduce mercury and toxic air pollutants and clean up wastewater and coal ash discharge. "EPA is cutting pollution while ensuring that power companies can make smart investments and continue to deliver reliable electricity for all Americans," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. Regan had said in 2022 he intended to take on several regulations together to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, and help states, utilities and plant operators make better investment and plant retirement decisions. The new rules come as electric utilities brace for a spike in demand from data centers powering technology like generative AI, as well as from the growth of electric vehicles. The United States is projected this year to add more electric generation capacity than it has done in two decades, with 96% being clean energy, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters. Among the changes the EPA made to the carbon rule is dropping hydrogen as a "best system of emission reduction" for gas plants to achieve new standards. Now it is just carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) that could be used for the longest-running existing coal units and new gas turbines that run more than 40% of the time. The EPA initially proposed that the standards apply to plants that run more than 50% of the time. The agency also said coal plants that plan to run past 2039 will be required to install CCS technology starting in 2032 in the final rule. It had initially proposed requiring CCS for plants that will be running past 2040. The Edison Electric Institute, an investor-owned utility trade group, said it appreciated EPA's approach of bundling the different pollution rules to ease compliance, but was disappointed the agency didn't heed its concerns around CCS viability. "CCS is not yet ready for full-scale, economy-wide deployment, nor is there sufficient time to permit, finance, and build the CCS infrastructure needed for compliance by 2032," EEI President Dan Brouillette said. Regan told reporters the agency was confident in the technology, which has been bolstered by Inflation Reduction Act tax incentives, and support from "multiple power companies." The agency also said it has launched a process to get feedback on how to reduce carbon emissions from existing gas plants. The EPA removed coverage of existing gas plants from the initial proposal last month and gave no new timeline for developing a rule to cover the current fleet. The EPA also reduced mercury emissions limits for lignite coal plants by 70% and emissions limits associated with toxic metals by 67%, the first update of that rule since 2012, while also finalizing measures that would eliminate 660 million pounds of pollution per year being discharged into U.S. waterways and protect communities from coal ash contamination. Environmental groups praised the rules for helping to drive down power sector emissions alongside the IRA, putting the administration closer to its goal of net-zero emissions in the sector by 2035. "The age of unbridled climate pollution from power plants is over," said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito, top Republican on the Senate environment committee, said she plans to introduce a resolution aiming to overturn the rules. "President Biden has inexplicably doubled down on his plans to shut down the backbone of America's electric grid through unachievable regulatory mandates," she said.

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BRUSSELS — Chinese security equipment company Nuctech's Dutch and Polish offices were raided by EU competition regulators, the company said on Wednesday, as the European Commission cracks down on companies receiving unfair state subsidies which put EU peers at a disadvantage. The European Commission has launched four investigations against Chinese companies since its foreign subsidies regulation introduced in July 2023 allowed the executive to assess whether subsidies allowed companies to submit overly advantageous offers in procurement tenders to edge out EU rivals. "Nuctech offices in the Netherlands and Poland are being inspected by the European Commission in relation to the Foreign Subsidies Regulation," partly-state owned Nuctech said in a statement. "Nuctech is cooperating with the European Commission and is committed to defending its reputation of a fully independent and self-supporting economic operator," the maker of security inspection scanners for airports and ports said. The Commission on Tuesday announced dawn raids at an unnamed company in an unnamed EU country, which could lead to another investigation if the executive finds sufficient evidence of distortive subsidies. "The Commission has indications that the inspected company may have received foreign subsidies that could distort the internal market pursuant to the Foreign Subsidies Regulation," the Commission said in a statement. Nuctech was blacklisted by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, Commerce in 2020. An official from China's commerce ministry earlier condemned the raid, saying it interfered with the normal order of fair competition. The China Chamber of Commerce to the EU said it was told that IT equipment and employees' mobile phones were seized by regulators who also demanded access to data. "The EU's actions send a detrimental message not only to Chinese enterprises but to all non-EU companies conducting business in the bloc," it said in a statement. A Chinese Ministry of Commerce official said in a statement the raid undermined the confidence of all foreign enterprises in their operations in Europe and said China would take all necessary measures to safeguard the rights of its firms.

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