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Washington — Then-president Donald Trump secretly sent COVID test kits to Vladimir Putin despite a U.S. shortage during the pandemic, and spoke multiple times with the Russian leader after leaving office, says an explosive new book by Bob Woodward.  The upcoming opus, War, also chronicles some of President Joe Biden's own acknowledged missteps and his struggle to prevent escalation of conflict in the Middle East, including exasperation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over futile efforts to get Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire.  In excerpts published Tuesday by The Washington Post, where he is an associate editor, Woodward lays out damning details and actions by Trump, who the writer says has retained a personal relationship with Putin even as Trump campaigns for another presidential term and the Russian president conducts a war against Ukraine, a U.S. ally.  With the coronavirus ravaging the world in 2020, Trump sent a batch of test kits to his counterpart in Moscow. Putin accepted the supplies but sought to avoid political fallout for Trump, urging that he not reveal the dispatch of medical equipment, this book says.  According to Woodward, Putin told Trump: "I don't want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me."  Woodward also cites an unnamed Trump aide in the book who indicated the Republican flag bearer may have spoken to Putin up to seven times since leaving the White House in 2021.   The Post, reporting Woodward's account, said that at one point in early 2024, Trump ordered an aide out of his office in his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida so he could hold a private call with Putin.  War is set for publication on Oct. 15, just three weeks before a critical U.S. election in which Trump is locked in a tight race against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.  While Harris does make appearances in the book, she is seen in a supporting role to Biden "and hardly determining foreign policy herself," the Post reported.  Woodward has chronicled American presidencies for 50 years, and this is his fourth book since Trump's upset victory in 2016. He began his presidential reportages with Richard Nixon, who was undone by the 1970s Watergate scandal exposed by Woodward and Post colleague Carl Bernstein.  Woodward concluded that Trump's interactions, detailed in the book, with an authoritarian president at war with a U.S. ally make him more unfit to be president than Nixon.  "Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024," Woodward wrote.  The Trump campaign blasted the book as "trash" and "made up stories."  They are "the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome," campaign communications director Steven Cheung told AFP.  According to CNN, which obtained a pre-release book copy, Woodward repeatedly quotes Biden dropping F bombs as he discusses his personal and political challenges.  Biden called Putin "the epitome of evil," blasted Netanyahu as a "liar" and said he "should never have picked" Merrick Garland as U.S. attorney general.  According to the book, during an April phone call Biden turned testy with Netanyahu.  "What's your strategy, man?" Biden asked the Israeli leader, according to Woodward.  "We have to go into Rafah," Netanyahu said, referring to a city in southern Gaza.  "Bibi, you've got no strategy," Biden responded.

The European Commission has filed a lawsuit over Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection legislation, saying it violates EU law. Opponents see the law as a threat to the few remaining independent media outlets in Hungary, which rely on international funding sources. VOA’s Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from Budapest. VOA footage and video editing by Daniil Batushchak.

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON — TikTok faces new lawsuits filed by 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday, accusing the popular social media platform of harming and failing to protect young people. The lawsuits, filed separately in New York, California, the District of Columbia and 11 other states, expand Chinese-owned TikTok's legal fight with U.S. regulators and seek new financial penalties against the company. Washington is located in the District of Columbia. The states accuse TikTok of using intentionally addictive software designed to keep children watching as long and often as possible and misrepresenting its content moderation effectiveness. "TikTok cultivates social media addiction to boost corporate profits," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. "TikTok intentionally targets children because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content." TikTok seeks to maximize the amount of time users spend on the app in order to target them with ads, the states said. "Young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok," said New York Attorney General Letitia James. TikTok said on Tuesday that it strongly disagreed with the claims, "many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading," and that it was disappointed the states chose to sue "rather than work with us on constructive solutions to industrywide challenges." TikTok provides safety features that include default screentime limits and privacy defaults for minors under 16, the company said. Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb alleged that TikTok operates an unlicensed money transmission business through its livestreaming and virtual currency features. "TikTok's platform is dangerous by design. It's an intentionally addictive product that is designed to get young people addicted to their screens," Schwalb said in an interview. Washington's lawsuit accused TikTok of facilitating sexual exploitation of underage users, saying TikTok's livestreaming and virtual currency "operate like a virtual strip club with no age restrictions." Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington state also sued on Tuesday. In March 2022, eight states, including California and Massachusetts, said they launched a nationwide probe of TikTok impacts on young people. The U.S. Justice Department sued TikTok in August for allegedly failing to protect children's privacy on the app. Other states, including Utah and Texas, previously sued TikTok for failing to protect children from harm. TikTok on Monday rejected the allegations in a court filing. TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is battling a U.S. law that could ban the app in the United States.

Washington — The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions against a senior leader in war-torn Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for his role in obtaining weapons for the paramilitary organization. Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced since war broke out in April 2023 between Sudan's army and the RSF after their head generals refused a plan to integrate. Algoney Hamdan Daglo Musa was sanctioned "for his involvement in RSF efforts to procure weapons and other military materiel that have enabled the RSF's ongoing operations in Sudan," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. His actions have fueled war in Sudan "and brutal RSF atrocities against civilians, which have included war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing," Miller said. The U.S. Treasury said that as a result of such sanctions "all property and interests in property of the designated persons... that are in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported." The United States has led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting in Sudan but has seen limited success and leverage, with RSF commanders unlikely to hold major assets in the West that would be affected by sanctions.

Washington — President Joe Biden is postponing a planned trip to Germany and Angola to remain at the White House to monitor Hurricane Milton, which is bearing down on Florida's Gulf Coast, the White House announced on Tuesday. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the change was necessary "given the projected trajectory and strength" of the storm. It was not clear when the trip might be rescheduled. Biden had promised to go to Africa during his term in office, which ends in January. Hurricane Milton weakened slightly Tuesday but remained a ferocious storm that could land a once-in-a-century direct hit on the populous Tampa Bay region with towering storm surges and turn debris from Helene's devastation 12 days ago into projectiles. Most of Florida's west coast was under a hurricane or tropical storm warning as the storm and its 145 mph (230 kph) winds spun just off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, creeping toward the state. With the storm expected to remain fairly strong as it crosses Florida, parts of the eastern coast were put under hurricane warnings early Tuesday. Milton's center could come ashore Wednesday night in the Tampa Bay area, which has a population of more than 3.3 million people.

India and the Maldives have reset ties that plummeted as Maldivian President Mohammed Muizzu leaned toward China after taking office a year ago. Muizzu’s outreach to India during a visit to New Delhi comes amid an economic downturn in his tiny country. Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi.

Mbabane, Eswatini — The main opposition party in Eswatini is compiling a “hit list” of game rangers in response to what it says are state-sanctioned murders of suspected poachers. Communities have been urged to assist in identifying rangers involved in the killings. As tensions mount over poaching-related deaths in Eswatini, the fear of violence looms large.  Although there is no definitive count of suspected poachers killed in Eswatini's game parks, the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs estimates that dozens are slain each year.  However, Eswatini's opposition parties allege hundreds of families have been impacted by these deaths and have called for a compilation of a game ranger “hit list.”  Velephi Mamba, treasurer general of main opposition party PUDEMO, one of the groups calling for possible violence against the rangers, said the news of the list of game rangers that was announced a week ago still stands. In fact, he said, it’s an ongoing issue. Mamba said his party request that all Swazis compile a list of the names of game rangers that are killing our people. Amid the growing controversy, legislators and human rights activists in Eswatini recently demanded an urgent review of the Game Act of 1991. They say the law allows game rangers in the southern African kingdom to shoot suspected poachers in national parks with little or no consequence. Human rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi is among those calling for revision of the law. He said game rangers need to make greater efforts to arrest suspected poachers and bring them to court, rather than killing or torturing them. “The game rangers themselves should understand that they should prioritize the use of non-lethal methods for the apprehension when dealing with suspected poachers,” Nhlabatsi said. “The use of excessive force, in my view, does not only violate human rights but also undermines the credibility of the conservation efforts." Mandla Motsa, a game ranger in Eswatini, defended his colleagues’ actions, saying there is an urgent need to protect endangered species in the parks from extinction, and that rangers face a formidable threat from well-armed poachers. There have been multiple reported incidents of rangers and poachers exchanging gunfire.  "We are getting a lot of pressure from poachers who are always armed and attacking the rangers on duty, while we have got organizations who feel like the poachers should be allowed to do whatever they are doing, which is against the work the rangers are doing,” Motsa said. Meanwhile, Eswatini government spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo condemned the calls for a “hit list” and urged citizens to shun requests to provide names. He emphasized the importance of following due process and the rule of law for achieving justice. “Nobody should heed to such calls because they are going to lead into an escalation of violence in our communities around the country, and we know that that is the kind of atmosphere they want to create around the kingdom of Eswatini," Nxumalo said. Legislators have begun discussing reforms to the Game Act of 1991 but so far there have been no amendments proposed, and no votes scheduled as of yet.

SRINAGAR, Indian-administered Kashmir — Kashmir's biggest political party opposed to India's stripping of the region's semi-autonomy won the most seats in a local election, official data showed Tuesday, in a vote seen as a referendum against the move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. National Conference, or NC, won 42 seats, mainly from the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of the anti-India rebellion, according to the data. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party secured 29 seats, all from the Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu. India's main opposition Congress party, which fought the election in alliance with the NC, succeeded in six constituencies. "People have supported us more than our expectations. Now our efforts will be to prove that we are worth these votes," Omar Abdullah, the NC leader and the region's former chief minister, told reporters in the main city of Srinagar. His father and president of the party, Farooq Abdullah, said that the mandate was to run the region without "police raj [rule]" and try freeing people from jails. "Media will be free," he said. "People have given their mandate, they have proven that they don't accept the decision that was taken on August 5," he added referring to India's move in August 2019. The vote will allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a regional legislature, called an assembly, rather than being directly under New Delhi's rule. However, there will be a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the assembly as Kashmir will remain a "union territory" — directly controlled by the federal government — with India's Parliament as its main legislator. Kashmir's statehood must be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states of India. Hundreds of the NC workers gathered outside counting centers and at the homes of the winning candidates to celebrate the party's victory. It was the first such vote in a decade and the first since Modi's Hindu nationalist government scrapped the Muslim-majority region's long-held semi-autonomy in 2019. The unprecedented move downgraded and divided the former state into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir. Both are ruled directly by New Delhi through its appointed administrators along with unelected bureaucrats and security setup. The move — which largely resonated in India and among Modi supporters — was mostly opposed in Kashmir as an assault on its identity and autonomy amid fears that it would pave the way for demographic changes in the region. The region has since been on edge with civil liberties curbed and media gagged. India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Authorities tallied votes as thousands of additional police and paramilitary soldiers patrolled roads and guarded 28 counting centers. Nearly 8.9 million people were eligible to vote in the election, which began on Sept. 18 and concluded on Oct. 1. The overall turnout was 64% across the three phases, according to official data. In the region's legislature, five seats are appointed and 90 elected, so a party or coalition would need at least 48 of the 95 total seats to form a government. The alliance of the National Conference and the Congress have 48 seats combined. Authorities have said the election will bring democracy to the region after decades of strife, but many locals viewed the vote as an opportunity not only to elect their own representatives but also to register their protest against the 2019 changes. Except for the BJP, most parties who contested the election campaigned on promises to reverse the 2019 changes and address key issues like rising unemployment and inflation. The Congress party favored restoring the region's statehood. The BJP has also stated that it will restore statehood, but has not told when it would do. The BJP has vowed to block any move aimed at undoing most of the 2019 changes but promised to help in the region's economic development. Meanwhile, Modi's BJP appears to be heading for a victory in the northern state of Haryana, bordering New Delhi, which it has ruled for 10 years, leading in 50 constituencies and the Congress in 35 out of 90. The BJP has so far won 18 seats and is leading in 32 constituencies while the Congress has won 15 seats and is leading in 20, according to the Election Commission of India. A victory would give the BJP a record third five-year term in the state. The voting trend in Haryana state is a surprise since most exit polls had predicted an easy victory for the Congress party. Kashmir's last assembly election was held in 2014, after which the BJP for the first time ruled in a coalition with the local Peoples Democratic Party. But the government collapsed in 2018 after the BJP withdrew from the coalition. Polls in the past have been marked with violence, boycotts and vote-rigging, even though India called them a victory over separatism. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi's rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels' goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Vientiane, Laos, later this week for meetings with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, where he is expected to engage directly with newly elected leaders from the Indo-Pacific. Blinken will represent President Joe Biden at this year’s ASEAN-U.S. Summit and participate in the East Asia Summit, where leaders and senior officials from India, Japan, South Korea, and the People’s Republic of China are also expected to attend. The State Department said Blinken will discuss geopolitical issues during his talks in Vientiane, including the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, which is also called Burma, and the importance of upholding international law in the South China Sea, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.   As the Burmese junta prepares for an election next year amid widespread conflict across much of the country, a senior State Department official told VOA that elections should not take place prior to genuine peace and reconciliation.  “We remain deeply concerned by the regime's stated plans to hold elections, because any elections under current conditions would stand no chance of expressing the will of the people of Burma,” Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told VOA during a phone briefing on Tuesday.  He added, the U.S. fears that “premature elections” under current conditions “would likely only generate more violence and prolong the ongoing crisis” in Myanmar.   This week's ASEAN summits will feature the debut of Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 38, who became Thailand’s prime minister in mid-August. She will make her first bilateral visit to Laos on Tuesday and will be the youngest Southeast Asian leader at the summit. Singapore has also seen a generational shift with Lawrence Wong succeeding longtime Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in May. Japan's new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba took office on October 1. He has pledged to strengthen his country’s alliance with the U.S. during a call with President Biden last Wednesday. “I am grateful for the prime minister’s commitment to the U.S.-Japan Alliance and look forward to working with his government to reinforce the enduring partnership between our two nations,” Blinken said in a statement last week. Ishiba is also in discussions with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol about holding a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. Regional security, development and trade — including the creation of resilient semiconductor supply chains — are expected to be top priorities on the U.S. agenda. In 2023, total two-way merchandise trade between the United States and ASEAN reached $395.9 billion, making the U.S. the second-largest trading partner after China. Additionally, the U.S. is ASEAN’s largest source of foreign direct investment, which amounted to $74.3 billion last year. Susannah Patton, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Sydney-based think tank Lowy Institute, said that this year’s East Asia Summit must address contentious global issues such as the conflict in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The East Asia Summit comprises ASEAN’s 10 member countries and eight major dialogue partners, including the United States, China typically represented by Premier Li Qiang, and Russia represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In a recent analysis published by the Lowy Institute, Patton noted that it is likely that the “ASEAN show will come to Laos and then roll on again,” adding that “concrete progress on pressing issues will be sorely lacking.” “While the EAS is still likely to issue at least one jointly negotiated statement in 2024,” Patton wrote, “it is a reflection of global political polarization that ASEAN’s dialogue partners are no longer able to propose their own dueling statements to advance their preferred language on international issues.”

STOCKHOLM — Two pioneers of artificial intelligence — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for helping create the building blocks of machine learning that is revolutionizing the way we work and live but also creates new threats to humanity, one of the winners said. Hinton, who is known as the "godfather of artificial intelligence," is a citizen of Canada and Britain who works at the University of Toronto. Hopfield is an American working at Princeton. "This year's two Nobel Laureates in physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today's powerful machine learning," the Nobel committee said in a press release. Ellen Moons, a member of the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the two laureates "used fundamental concepts from statistical physics to design artificial neural networks that function as associative memories and find patterns in large data sets." She said that such networks have been used to advance research in physics and "have also become part of our daily lives, for instance in facial recognition and language translation." Hinton predicted that AI will end up having a "huge influence" on civilization, bringing improvements in productivity and health care. "It would be comparable with the Industrial Revolution," he said in the open call with reporters and the officials from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. "Instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it's going to exceed people in intellectual ability. We have no experience of what it's like to have things smarter than us. And it's going to be wonderful in many respects," Hinton said. "But we also have to worry about a number of possible bad consequences, particularly the threat of these things getting out of control." The Nobel committee that honored the science behind machine learning and AI also mentioned fears about its possible flipside. Moon said that while it has "enormous benefits, its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future. Collectively, humans carry the responsibility for using this new technology in a safe and ethical way for the greatest benefit of humankind." Hinton shares those concerns. He quit a role at Google so he could more freely speak about the dangers of the technology he helped create. On Tuesday, he said he was shocked at the honor. "I'm flabbergasted. I had, no idea this would happen," he said when reached by the Nobel committee on the phone. There was no immediate reaction from Hopfield. Hinton, now 76, in the 1980s helped develop a technique known as backpropagation that has been instrumental in training machines how to "learn." His team at the University of Toronto later wowed peers by using a neural network to win the prestigious ImageNet computer vision competition in 2012. That win spawned a flurry of copycats, giving birth to the rise of modern AI. Hopfield, 91, created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data, the Nobel committee said. Hinton used Hopfield's network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method, known as the Boltzmann machine, that the committee said can learn to recognize characteristic elements in a given type of data. Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize for their discovery of tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on and off switches inside cells that help control what the cells do and when they do it. If scientists can better understand how they work and how to manipulate them, it could one day lead to powerful treatments for diseases like cancer. The physics prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by the award's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death. Nobel announcements continue with the chemistry physics prize on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 14.

Beijing/Paris — China imposed temporary anti-dumping measures on imports of brandy from the EU on Tuesday, hitting French brands including Hennessy and Remy Martin, days after the 27-state bloc voted for tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, or EVs. China's commerce ministry said preliminary findings of an investigation had determined that dumping of brandy from the European Union threatens "substantial damage" to its own sector. France's trade ministry said the temporary Chinese measures were "incomprehensible" and violated free trade, and that it would work with the European Commission to challenge the move at the World Trade Organization. In a sign of the rising trade tensions, China's ministry added in another statement on Tuesday that an ongoing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into EU pork products would make "objective and fair" decisions when it concludes. It also said that it was considering a hike in tariffs on imports of large-engine vehicles, which would hit German producers hardest. German exports of vehicles with engines of 2.5 liters or larger to China reached $1.2 billion last year. France was seen as the target of Beijing's brandy probe due to its support of tariffs on China-made EVs. French brandy shipments to China reached $1.7 billion last year and accounted for 99% of the country's imports of the spirit. As of Oct. 11, importers of brandy originating in the EU will have to put down security deposits mostly ranging from 34.8% to 39.0% of the import value, the ministry said. "This announcement clearly shows that China is determined to tax us in response to European decisions on Chinese electric vehicles," French cognac producers group BNIC said in an email. French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that China's brandy probe was "pure retaliation," while EV tariffs were needed to preserve a level playing field. Shares tumble LVMH-owned Hennessy and Remy Martin were among the brands hardest hit by the measures, with importers having to pay security deposits of 39.0% and 38.1%, respectively. The deposits would make it more costly upfront to import brandy from the EU. However they could be returned if a deal is eventually reached before definitive tariffs are imposed. Both the investigation and negotiations remain ongoing, said an executive at a leading cognac company, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. Chinese investigators visited producers in France last month and were due to make further site visits, the executive said, while Chinese and EU officials held negotiations on Monday. The outcome was unclear, however, and doubts around the EU's willingness to make a deal were emerging, they added. Shares in Pernod Ricard were down 4.2% at 0839 GMT, while Remy Cointreau's dropped 8.7% and shares in LVMH fell 4.9%. Companies that cooperated with China's investigation were hit with security deposit rates of 34.8%, with that imposed on Martell the lowest at 30.6%. Pernod Ricard, Remy Cointreau and LVMH did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The measures could mean a 20% price rise for consumers in China, said Jefferies analysts, reducing sales volumes by 20%. Remy, with the greatest exposure to the Chinese market, could see its sales decline by 6%, with Pernod group sales seeing a 1.6% impact, they said. China is the second largest export market for cognac after the United States but is the industry's most profitable territory. Difficult economic conditions in both markets have already prompted a sharp decline in cognac sales. James Sym, fund manager at Remy investor River Global, said despite this, there was no sign that demand for cognac had fundamentally changed, pointing to an uptick in cognac sales in Japan driven by Chinese tourists when the yen was weak. "That's obviously a sign that cognac is not out of fashion," he said, adding volumes – and the companies' share prices – should recover long-term, although the tariffs would likely hit volumes and margins while in place. Talks continue Luxury goods shares fell by as much as 7% on Tuesday, with one trader attributing this to fears that the sector, which is heavily reliant on China, could be next to see trade measures. The brandy measures follow a vote by the EU to adopt tariffs on China-made EVs by the end of October. Before the vote in late August, China had suspended its planned anti-dumping measures on EU brandy, in an apparent goodwill gesture, despite determining it had been sold in China at below-market prices. At the time, the commerce ministry said its probe would end before Jan. 5, 2025, but that it could be extended. China's commerce ministry previously said it had found that European distillers had been selling brandy in its 1.4 billion-strong consumer market at a dumping margin in the range of 30.6% to 39% and that its domestic industry had been damaged. In the EU's decision to impose tariffs on China-made EVs, the bloc set tariff rates on top of the 10% car import duty ranging from 7.8% for Tesla to 35.3% for SAIC and other producers deemed not to have cooperated with its investigation. The European Commission has said it is willing to continue negotiating an alternative, even after tariffs are imposed.

While online dating apps are as popular as ever, some singles prefer meeting in person. Karina Bafradzhian has a look at some services that offer face-to-face meetups for people who are looking for friends as often as dates. Camera: Sergii Dogotar

LISBON — Chinese lithium producers are flooding the global market with the critical metal and causing a "predatory" price drop as they seek to eliminate competing projects, a senior U.S. official said on a visit to Portugal that has ample lithium reserves. Jose Fernandez, undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment at the U.S. Department of State, told a briefing late on Monday that China was producing much more lithium "than the world needs today, by far." "That is an intentional response by the People's Republic of China to what we are trying to do" with the Inflation Reduction Act - the largest climate and energy investment package in U.S. history valued at over $400 billion, Fernandez said. "They engage in predatory pricing... [they] lower the price until competition disappears,’’ Fernandez said. ‘’That is what is happening." China accounts for about two-thirds of the world's lithium chemical output, which is mainly used in battery technologies including for electric cars. Prices of lithium have fallen more than 80% in the past year largely due to overproduction from China and a drop in demand for electric vehicles. However, the price collapse is also affecting China as it has forced Chinese companies like battery giant CATL to suspend production at certain mines. Job cuts Europe aims to reduce its dependence on imports from China and other countries of lithium and other materials essential to the green transition. Fernandez said the low price "constrains our ability to diversify our supply chains on a broad, global scale" and also hurts countries such as Portugal that need investment to develop these industries. Falling prices have forced many global lithium producers to scale back production and cut jobs. Portugal, with some 60,000 tons of known reserves, is already Europe's biggest producer of lithium, traditionally mined for ceramics. Along with neighboring Spain, the country wants to take advantage of local lithium deposits, aiming to cover the entire value chain from mining and refining to cell and battery manufacturing to battery recycling. Several mining companies in Portugal have been looking for financing, customers and suppliers to crank up projects. "We want to help them, and we think we can... lithium mining companies, everywhere, have to survive this difficult phase that was created by predatory pricing," Fernandez said. China's Premier Li Qiang in June used his address at a World Economic Forum meeting in Dalian to hit back at accusations from the United States and E.U. that Chinese firms benefit from unfair subsidies and are poised to flood their markets with cheap green technologies. Trade tensions intensified last Friday when the European Union said it would press ahead with hefty tariffs on China-made electric vehicles to counter what it sees as unfair Chinese subsidies, after a year-long anti-subsidy investigation. China on Tuesday imposed temporary anti-dumping measures on imports of brandy from the E.U.

Washington — Despite ongoing U.S. sanctions targeting Chinese companies linked to Uyghur forced labor in Xinjiang, United States-based footwear and apparel company Skechers opened a new outlet in Urumqi, the region's capital. The store opened on September 28, days before Chinese national holiday week, one of the country's busiest shopping periods. Its opening has drawn criticism from human rights advocates who question Skechers' decision to expand its presence in a region under international scrutiny and subject to U.S. import bans on goods tied to forced labor. Jewher Ilham, forced labor project coordinator at the Worker Rights Consortium, expressed concern over Skechers' decision. “By opening a store in the Uyghur region, Skechers is making a shocking statement that it does not care about human rights,” she said. Skechers did not respond to multiple requests for comment from VOA. Xinjiang, in northwest China, has been at the center of international controversy over allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities, including forced labor, mass incarceration and repression — claims Chinese authorities have consistently denied. Xinjiang produces one-fifth of the world’s cotton. In response, the United States passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2022, which bars goods from Xinjiang unless proven to be free of forced labor. Skechers promoted its Urumqi store opening heavily on Chinese social media, with actor and brand ambassador Donnie Yen encouraging his nearly 130 million followers on Weibo to visit the outlet and explore its “comfortable treasures.” Yen did not respond to multiple media inquiries from VOA regarding his visit to Xinjiang or his views on the treatment of Uyghurs by Chinese authorities. Timothy Grose, an associate professor of China studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, pointed out that “from a profit-seeking perspective, of course, Donnie Yen makes sense, especially since nearly 75% of Urumqi’s population is Han Chinese.” “Unfortunately, few Han are either fully aware or are concerned about state violence against the Uyghurs, so I doubt they will be judging Donnie Yen’s appearance with their moral compasses,” he told VOA. Corporate responsibility This isn’t the first time Skechers has faced scrutiny over alleged ties to forced labor in Xinjiang. In response to a 2020 report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute alleging its supplier employed Uyghur workers under coercive conditions, Skechers denied the allegations. The company said audits of its supplier, Dong Guan Lu Zhou Shoes, found no evidence of forced labor, and that Uyghur workers were employed under the same terms as other employees. Skechers’ recent move comes as the U.S. continues to intensify its efforts to eliminate forced labor from global supply chains. On October 2, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security added two more Chinese companies to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, bringing the total number of restricted entities to 75. “Today’s actions reaffirm our commitment to eliminating forced labor from U.S. supply chains and upholding our values of human rights for all,” DHS undersecretary for policy Robert Silvers said in a statement on the DHS website. “No sector is off-limits. We will continue to identify entities across industries and hold accountable those who seek to profit from exploitation and abuse.” Chinese pushback In China, Western companies that publicly declared a break from sourcing products from Xinjiang have long faced backlash from Chinese consumers. In September, PVH, parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, became the first Western firm investigated by Chinese authorities, who accused the company of violating Chinese law by allegedly halting the purchase of cotton and garments from Xinjiang. Corporate responsibility in Xinjiang has become a contentious issue. Grose pointed out that companies like Skechers may view doing business in Xinjiang and China as a safe financial bet, despite human rights concerns. The company’s actions are a stark reminder that companies should be held accountable not just by governments but by consumers, as well, said Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow and director in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. “[B]rands are simply out for profit, with no regard to human rights,” he said. “Western consumers are not showing much outrage over this. There is little backlash, so they will do it,” Zenz said.