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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon could get weapons moving to Ukraine within days once Congress passes a long-delayed aid bill. That's because it has a network of storage sites in the U.S. and Europe that hold the ammunition and air defense components that Kyiv desperately needs. Moving fast is critical, CIA Director Bill Burns said this past week, warning that without additional aid from the U.S., Ukraine could lose the war to Russia by the end of this year. "We would like very much to be able to rush the security assistance in the volumes we think they need to be able to be successful," Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said. The House approved $61 billion in funding for the war-torn country Saturday. It still needs to clear the Senate and President Joe Biden’s signature. Once that happens, "we have a very robust logistics network that enables us to move material very quickly," Ryder told reporters this past week. "We can move within days." Ready to go The Pentagon has had supplies ready to go for months but hasn't moved them because it is out of money. It has spent the funding Congress previously provided to support Ukraine, sending more than $44 billion worth of weapons, maintenance, training and spare parts since Russia's February 2022 invasion. By December, the Pentagon was $10 billion in the hole, because it is going to cost more now to replace the systems it sent to the battlefield in Ukraine. As a result, the Pentagon's frequent aid packages for Ukraine dried up because there had been no guarantee that Congress would pass the additional funding needed to replenish the weapons the U.S. has been sending to Ukraine. The lag in weapons deliveries has forced Ukrainian troops to spend months rationing their dwindling supply of munitions. How US can quickly move weapons When an aid package for Ukraine is announced, the weapons are either provided through presidential drawdown authority, which allows the military to immediately pull from its stockpiles, or through security assistance, which funds longer-term contracts with the defense industry to obtain the systems. The presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, as it's known, has allowed the military to send billions of dollars' worth of ammunition, air defense missile launchers, tanks, vehicles and other equipment to Ukraine. "In the past, we've seen weapons transferred via presidential drawdown authority arrive within a matter of days," said Brad Bowman, director at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies center on military and political power. Those stocks are pulled from bases or storage facilities in the U.S. or from European sites where the U.S. has surged weapons to cut down on the amount of time it will take to deliver them once the funding is approved. Storage in US The military has massive weapons storage facilities in the U.S. for millions of rounds of munitions of all sizes that would be ready to use in case of war. For example, the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma sprawls across more than 16,000 hectares connected by rail and has a mission to surge as many as 435 shipping containers — each able to carry 15 tons worth of munitions — if ordered by the president. The facility is also a major storage site for one of the most used munitions on Ukraine's battlefield, 155 mm howitzer rounds. The demand by Ukraine for that particular shell has put pressure on U.S. stockpiles and pushed the military to see where else it could get them. As a result, tens of thousands of 155 mm rounds have been shipped back from South Korea to McAlester to be retrofitted for Ukraine. Storage in Europe According to a U.S. military official, the U.S. would be able to send certain munitions "almost immediately" to Ukraine because storehouses exist in Europe. Among the weapons that could go very quickly are the 155 mm rounds and other artillery, along with some air defense munitions. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss preparations not yet made public. A host of sites across Germany, Poland and other European allies also are helping Ukraine maintain and train on systems sent to the front. For example, Germany set up a maintenance hub for Kyiv's Leopard 2 tank fleet in Poland, near the Ukrainian border. The nearby maintenance hubs hasten the turnaround time to get needed repairs done on the Western systems. 

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.

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Sydney — Australian researchers have built an electrical generator that consumes carbon dioxide, generates electricity and admits no exhausts.  They say the technology could create a new industrial-scale carbon capture method.   Scientists say too much carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the atmosphere is main driver of warming temperatures.   Researchers at the University of Queensland have created a generator that consumes carbon dioxide and produces electricity. The carbon-negative “nano-generator” has been built by the university’s Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation. The prototype device uses what is known as a poly amine gel to absorb carbon dioxide to create an electrical current.   The design team acknowledges the technology needs further development and refinement but believes it could help to significantly curb global CO2 emissions. Zhuyuan Wang from the University of Queensland told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the concept has great potential.   “We actually just finished the proof of concept that proves this can work but the current power density and efficiency is not high enough to compete with other energy sources, like solar panel[s], like the wind turbine,” he said. The Queensland researchers hope their prototype could have industrial applications to help, for example, power plants reduce their emissions, as well as smaller units for use at home. Carbon capture and storage techniques are used by the oil and gas sector to try to offset its emissions of greenhouse gases. Current methods involve harnessing CO2 produced by power companies, for example, and then burying it deep underground where it becomes trapped in rock formations. There are several large-scale CO2 burial sites in the United States. However, the Climate Council, an Australian advocacy organization, claims that carbon capture and storage technology “has not been trialled and tested – anywhere in the world – at the scale required to tackle the climate crisis.”  Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation, states that “emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels make the largest contribution to climate change.”  Australia is the world's 14th highest emitter, contributing just over 1% of global emissions.  It has, however, some of the world’s highest per capita emissions.  Coal and gas generate much of Australia’s electricity, but solar and wind are leading an energy transformation.  The Climate Council states that almost a third of Australia’s energy is renewable and will soon reach 50%.

Washington — Republican Mike Johnson came out of nowhere six months ago to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, before emerging as an ardent defender of military aid to Ukraine, which the chamber approved Saturday.   The evolution of this 52-year-old Southerner with carefully coiffed hair has been stunning.   An arch-conservative Christian from Louisiana, he shot to the top leadership position in the House in October after the unprecedented ouster of then-speaker Kevin McCarthy in a rebellion by far-right lawmakers allied with Donald Trump.   After several candidates were proposed, then discarded, Johnson's name came up — he was a virtual unknown to the American public — and with the blessing of Trump, Johnson become leader of the House and of a Republican congressional caucus at war with itself. Johnson had for months blocked a vote on the aid desperately needed by Ukraine's army as it defends against Russian invasion forces. But recently his tone began to soften. And then, in a head-spinning shift, Johnson last week emerged as a passionate defender of a long-delayed aid package.   That culminated in the vote Saturday in which his chamber, by a strong bipartisan majority, passed more than $60 billion of additional military and financial support for Ukraine.   Metamorphosis What was behind Johnson's metamorphosis?   "I believe Johnson has been convinced, gradually, that America must support Ukraine in our own interests, and that the far-right Republicans demanding otherwise were simply wrong," Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, told AFP.   In December, as previously approved U.S. funding for Kyiv was drying up, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine made a last-ditch visit to Washington to plead for a new aid package.   Zelenskyy made his way through the halls of Congress accompanied by the Senate's top Democrat and Republican, both vocal supporters of President Joe Biden's request for $60 billion.   But his meeting with Johnson was held behind closed doors.   Johnson afterward said Biden was asking for "billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win, and none of the answers that I think the American people are owed." Since then, however, a series of U.S. and world figures — including British Foreign Secretary David Cameron — worked to persuade Johnson of the high stakes, with some warning that Ukraine could fall by year's end unless the U.S. aid came through. One concession   On Monday, Johnson announced the House would, after all, take up separate bills to provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and that he would support them.   Johnson did make one concession to Trump — who had demanded that aid to Ukraine be at least partly in the form of loans — making a part of the package subject to repayment.   But the debt can still be forgiven, and the aid package is almost exactly for the amount requested months ago by Biden. What was behind Johnson's rethinking? "He didn't want the fall of Ukraine on his hands," Sabato said. Johnson provided further insight during a news conference Wednesday.   "To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys," he said, before adding, his voice choking with emotion, that his son is about to enter the U.S. Naval Academy. "This is a live-fire exercise for me, as it is for so many American families," Johnson said. It remains unclear whether some of the far-right legislators behind last year's ouster of McCarthy might work to unseat Johnson after the perceived betrayal. The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, struck a philosophic tone when describing Johnson's thorny choices. "This," he said, "is a Churchill or Chamberlain moment" — referring first to the wartime British prime minister known for his steely determination and then to Churchill's predecessor, his name forever linked to a policy of appeasement. Without quite casting himself in those terms, Johnson said he views himself as "a wartime speaker." In a somber tone, he added, "We have to do the right thing — and history will judge us." 

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Male, Maldives — The Maldives votes Sunday in a parliamentary election likely to test President Mohamed Muizzu's tilt toward China and away from India, the luxury tourism hotspot's traditional benefactor. Primarily known as one of the most expensive holiday destinations in South Asia, with pristine white beaches and secluded resorts, the strategic Indian Ocean island nation has also become a geopolitical hotspot. Global east-west shipping lanes pass the nation's chain of 1,192 tiny coral islands, stretching around 800 kilometers (500 miles) across the equator. Muizzu, 45, won last September's presidential poll as a proxy for pro-China ex-President Abdulla Yameen, this week freed after a court set aside his 11-year jail term for corruption. This month, he awarded high-profile infrastructure contracts to Chinese state-owned companies as campaigning for the parliamentary elections was in full swing. His administration is also in the process of sending home a garrison of 89 Indian troops that operate reconnaissance aircraft gifted by New Delhi to patrol the vast maritime borders of the archipelago. The current parliament, dominated by the pro-India Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of his immediate predecessor Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, has sought to stymie his efforts to realign the archipelago's diplomacy. "Geopolitics is very much in the background as parties campaign for votes in Sunday's election," a senior aide of Muizzu told AFP, asking not to be named. "He came to power on a promise to send back Indian troops and he is working on it. The parliament has not been cooperating with him since he came to power."  Since Muizzu came to office, lawmakers have blocked three of his nominees to the cabinet and refused some of his spending proposals.\ Splits in all the main political parties, including Muizzu's People's National Congress (PNC), are expected to make it hard for any single party to win a majority.  But Muizzu's prospects this week received a fillip with the release of his mentor Yameen from house arrest this week. A court in the capital Male ordered a retrial in the graft and money laundering cases that saw Yameen sent to prison after he lost a reelection bid in 2018. Yameen had also backed closer alignment with Beijing while in power, but his conviction left him unable to contest last year's presidential poll on his own. He instead put forward Muizzu as a proxy, and after leaving the High Court on Thursday, Yameen vowed to continue the running anti-India campaign that helped his ally to victory. Around 285,000 Maldivians are eligible to vote Sunday, with results likely by early the next day. 

Cap-Haitian, Haiti — They call it Okap, home to Haiti's kings, emancipated slaves and revolutionaries. Sitting on the shimmering north coast, the city of Cap-Haitien was abandoned as a capital during the waning years of the French colonial era and again when the Kingdom of Haiti fell after its king died by suicide and his teenage son was slain. It was once known as the Paris of the Antilles, and now it is on the brink of becoming what some say is Haiti's de facto capital as Port-au-Prince crumbles under the onslaught of powerful gangs. "History repeats itself," Yvrose Pierre, Cap-Haitien mayor, told The Associated Press on a recent afternoon. Business owners, anxious parents and even historic state ceremonies have been relocating here — and that began before gangs started attacking key government infrastructure in Port-au-Prince in late February. Gunmen have burned police stations, stormed Haiti's two biggest prisons to release more than 4,000 inmates and fired on the country's main international airport, which hasn't reopened since closing in early March. Right now, "Cap-Haitien is the only city that connects Haiti to the world," Pierre said. Palm trees dot the city that is home to roughly 400,000 people who walk about freely and stay out late. They don't have to sidestep bodies strewn on sidewalks, run to avoid being hit by stray bullets or flinch if a pop-pop-pop fills the air, confident it's only fireworks. Such luxuries are absent in Port-au-Prince. More than 2,500 people were killed or injured in gang violence from January to March across Haiti, a more than 50% increase from the same period last year, according to a report Friday by the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti. The vast majority of violence is in Port-au-Prince. Pierre credits Cap-Haitien's tranquility to the recent demolition of more than 1,500 homes in the city's southern outskirts that gangs had infiltrated. The calm is one of the biggest reasons the city has attracted some of the nearly 95,000 people who have fled Port-au-Prince's gang violence in the past month alone. Local authorities recently demanded that all new arrivals register at City Hall to keep track of the influx. "A lot of people are coming, and there's a risk of this becoming unbalanced," the mayor said. "Cap-Haitien doesn't have enough resources to welcome everyone who is fleeing violence." She said that there are no camps or shelters for the migrants and that the city is struggling to provide food and housing for everyone, with some people forced to sleep in front of churches and grocery stores. Schools also are overwhelmed. At the Bell Angelot school in downtown Cap-Haitien, officials have seen a 10% increase in enrollment and say it is still rising. "There are too many students," director Jocelyn Laguerre said. And not all of the incoming families can pay, which Laguerre said he understands. "We know what is happening in this country," he said. There is no security at Laguerre's school. In Port-au-Prince heavily armed guards are a fixture at institutions where students of all ages have been kidnapped and gangs have extorted principals. In general, private guards are largely absent in many businesses across Cap-Haitien. On a recent afternoon, the clacks of dominoes played on a rickety outdoor table mingled with fans arguing over a yellow card issued during the Real Madrid-Manchester City soccer match, which attracted dozens of people who crowded around the doorways of open-air bars. No one looked around in fear they might be assaulted, kidnapped or killed. "There is more peace here than in other cities," Alfred Joseph said as he sat in a red plastic chair in a nearby lush public park. "For me, Cap-Haitien has always been the capital of Haiti." Despite the charms of the city, it shares many of Port-au-Prince's familiar woes: poverty, grinding traffic and mountains of garbage that choke the streets, rivers and ocean. But the absence of violence is enough for Baby Dovelus, who returned to Cap-Haitien after a student was kidnapped at her daughter's school in Port-au-Prince. "It was a big relief," she said of the move. "I feel good here. It's my city." As Haitians continue streaming into Cap-Haitien, some caution that the only way for the city to really become the capital again is to decentralize the government. All state-related business is currently conducted only in Port-au-Prince. Patrick Almonor, Cap-Haitien's deputy mayor, has hope. He believes that if his city avoids Port-au-Prince's mistake of concentrating everything in a small area, it's possible. "We deserve to be the capital," he said. "This is about to change."

Tokyo — Two Japanese navy helicopters carrying eight crewmembers were believed to have crashed in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo during a night-time training exercise, and rescuers were searching for the missing, Japan’s defense minister said. The two SH-60K choppers belonging to the Maritime Self Defense Force and carrying four crew each, lost contact late Saturday near Torishima island in the Pacific about 600 kilometers (370 miles) south of Tokyo, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters. One of the eight crewmembers was recovered from the waters, but his or her condition was unknown. Officials were still searching for the other seven. The cause of the crash was not immediately known, Kihara said, adding that officials are prioritizing the rescue operation. The MSDF deployed eight warships and five aircraft for the search and rescue of the missing crew. They recovered fragments believed to be from one of the SH-60Ks, Kihara said. “We believe the helicopters have crashed,” he said. The helicopters, twin-engine, multi-mission aircraft designed by Sikorsky and known as Seahawk, were on night-time anti-submarine training in the waters, Kihara said. One lost contact at 10:38 p.m. (1338 GMT) after sending an emergency signal. The other aircraft lost contact about 25 minutes later. One belonged to an air base in Nagasaki, and the other at a base in Tokushima prefecture. The SH-60K aircraft is usually deployed on destroyers for anti-submarine missions. Saturday’s training only involved the Japanese navy and was not part of a multinational exercise, defense officials said. They said no foreign aircraft or warships were spotted in the area. Japan, under its 2022 security strategy, has been accelerating its military buildup and fortifying deterrence in the southwestern Japanese islands in the Pacific and East China Sea to counter threats from China’s increasingly assertive military activities. Japan in recent years has extensively conducted its own naval exercises as well as joint drills with its ally the United States and other partners. Saturday’s apparent crash comes a year after a Ground Self-Defense Force UH-60 Blackhawk crashed off the southwestern Japanese island of Miyako, leaving all 10 crewmembers dead. In January 2022, an Air Self-Defense F-15 fighter jet crashed off the northcentral coast of Japan, killing two crew. Japan’s NHK public television said no weather advisories were issued in the area at the time of Saturday’s crash.

Tel Aviv, Israel — Thousands of Israeli demonstrators took to the streets Saturday to call for new elections and demand more action from the government to bring the hostages held in Gaza home, in the latest round of protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The protests have continued as the war in Gaza moves through its seventh month and amid growing anger over the government's approach to the 133 Israeli hostages still held by the Islamist movement Hamas. Surveys indicate that most Israelis blame Netanyahu for the security failures that led to the devastating attack by Hamas fighters on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel's longest-serving prime minister has repeatedly ruled out early elections, which opinion polls suggest he would lose, saying that to go to the polls in the middle of a war would only reward Hamas. "We're here to protest against this government that keeps dragging us down, month after month; before October 7th, after October 7th. We kept going down in a spiral," said Yalon Pikman, 58, who attended a march in Tel Aviv. Hamas-led gunmen seized 253 people during the Oct. 7 attack that killed around 1,200, according to Israeli tallies. Some hostages were freed in a November truce, but efforts to secure another deal appear to have stalled. Netanyahu has pledged to continue the Israeli campaign in Gaza, which local health authorities say has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, until all the hostages are brought home, and Hamas has been destroyed.     Last week's attack on Israel by waves of Iranian drones and missiles shifted attention  from the conflict in Gaza and for many relatives of the remaining hostages there is a growing feeling that time is running out. "My mother is really strong. She's holding us together," said Sharone Lifschitz, 52, whose 85-year-old mother, Yocheved Lifshitz, was among the hostages released in November but whose father, Oded, remains in captivity. "But as time passes, the weight of what is happening — the way that those who could have returned them failed to return them — the sheer weight of that is weighing more and more on her shoulders. And her hope, too, is diminishing."

Washington — U.S. officials are considering a request from Vietnam to be removed from a list of “nonmarket” economies, a step that would foster improved diplomatic relations with a potential ally in Asia but would anger some U.S. lawmakers and manufacturing firms. The Southeast Asian country is on the list of 12 nations identified by the U.S. as nonmarket economies, which also includes China and Russia because of strong state intervention in their economies.   Analysts believe Hanoi is hoping for a decision before the November U.S. election, which could mean a return to power of Donald Trump, who during his previous term as president threatened to boost tariffs on Vietnam because of its large trade surplus with the United States. Under the Trump administration, the Department of Treasury also put Vietnam on a list of currency manipulators, which can lead to being excluded from U.S. government procurement contracts or other remedial actions. The Treasury, under the Biden administration, removed Vietnam from this list. On the eve of President Joe Biden's September visit to Hanoi, where he and Vietnamese Secretary-General Nguyen Phu Trong elevated the U.S.-Vietnam relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership. Vietnam formally asked U.S. Department of Commerce to remove it from the list of nonmarket economies on the grounds that it had made economic reforms in recent years.   The Biden administration subsequently initiated a review of Vietnam's nonmarket economy (NME) status. The Department of Commerce is to issue a final decision by July 26, 270 days after initiating the review.   "Receiving market economy status is the highest diplomatic priority of the Vietnamese leadership this year, especially after last fall's double upgrade in diplomatic relations," said Zachary Abuza, a professor at National War College where he focuses on Southeast Asian politics and security issues. He told VOA Vietnamese that the Vietnamese “are really linking the implementation of the joint vision statement to receiving that status." The U.S. is Vietnam's most important export market with two-way trade totaling more than $125 billion in 2023, according to U.S. Census data. But Washington has initiated more trade defense investigations with Vietnam than with any other country, mainly anti-dumping investigations. Vietnam recorded 58 cases subject to trade remedies of the U.S. as of August 2023, in which 26 were anti-dumping, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in the U.S. Vietnam has engaged a lobbying firm in Washington to help it win congressional support for a status upgrade. A Foreign Agents Registration Act's statement filed to the U.S. Department of Justice shows that Washington-based Steptoe is assisting the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and supporting the Vietnamese government in "obtaining market economy status in antidumping proceedings." "I understand why Vietnamese are lobbying," said Murray Hiebert, a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). "One reason is U.S.-Vietnam relations have come so far, and to hold the non-market [status] is a little bit disingenuous because most of the countries that have this status are countries like China, Russia, North Korea, who are not so friendly with the United States. So I think [the U.S. recognition of Vietnam as a market economy] would be a sign that relations have improved." US election key Both Abuza and Hiebert believe that Vietnam is pushing hard to secure the upgrade before the November U.S. election that could bring Trump back into office. "Trump began an investigation of Vietnam's dumping just before the end of his administration. He may again start that process," said Hiebert, who was senior director for Southeast Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce before joining CSIS. But Vietnam's campaign faces opposition from within the U.S. More than 30 U.S. lawmakers in January sent joint letters to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo urging the Biden administration not to grant market economy status to Vietnam. They argued that Vietnam did not meet the procedural requirements for a change of status and that granting Hanoi’s wish would be "a serious mistake." The U.S. designated Vietnam as a nonmarket economy in 2002 during an anti-dumping investigation into Vietnamese catfish exports. Over the past 21 years, the U.S. has imposed anti-dumping duties on many Vietnamese exports, including agricultural and industrial products. In a request sent to Raimondo to initiate a changed circumstances review, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade said that over the past 20 years, the economy of Vietnam "has been through dramatic developments and reforms." It said 72 countries recognize Vietnam as a market economy, notably the U.K., Canada, Australia and Japan. 'Unfairly traded Chinese goods' U.S. manufacturing groups have expressed opposition to Vietnam's request, arguing that Vietnam continues to operate as a nonmarket economy. In comments sent to Raimondo, the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AMM) said that Vietnam "cannot reasonably be understood to demonstrate the characteristics of a market economy." "There's still heavy intervention by the governing Communist Party [of Vietnam]," said Scott Paul, president of AMM. "There's a lot of indication that China may be using Vietnam as a platform to also export to the U.S., which is obviously concerning to firms here," he said. In a letter dated January 28, eight senators wrote "Granting Vietnam market economy status before it addresses its clear nonmarket behavior and the severe deficiencies in its labor law will worsen ongoing trade distortions, erode the U.S. manufacturing base, threaten American workers and industries, and reinforce Vietnam's role as a conduit for goods produced in China with forced labor."   Many Chinese products have been found to be disguised or labeled as "Made in Vietnam" to avoid U.S. tariffs since Trump launched a trade war with China in 2018. Vietnam has promised to crack down on the practice. Abuza pointed out what he called a contradiction in U.S. policy. "Vietnam is too important to the United States economically in terms of trade and foreign direct investment, and we cannot look to Vietnam for supply chain diversification out of China if it doesn't have market economy status." Hiebert said the U.S. "should do this and get moving" as Vietnam is "one of the U.S.' best friends in Asia and Southeast Asia and help stand up to China."

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Chattanooga, Tennessee — Employees at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to join the United Auto Workers union Friday in a historic first test of the UAW's renewed effort to organize nonunion factories. The union wound up getting 2,628 votes, or 73% of the ballots cast, compared with only 985 who voted no in an election run by the National Labor Relations Board. Both sides have five business days to file objections to the election, the NLRB said. If there are none, the election will be certified, and VW and the union must "begin bargaining in good faith." President Joe Biden, who backed the UAW and won its endorsement, said the union's win follows major union gains across the country including actors, port workers, Teamsters members, writers and health care workers. Twice in recent years, workers at the Chattanooga plant have rejected union membership in plantwide votes. Most recently, they handed the UAW a narrow defeat in 2019 as federal prosecutors were breaking up a bribery-and-embezzlement scandal at the union. But this time, they voted convincingly for the UAW, which is operating under new leadership directly elected by members for the first time and basking in a successful confrontation with Detroit's major automakers. The union's new president, Shawn Fain, was elected on a platform of cleaning up after the scandal and turning more confrontational with automakers. An emboldened Fain, backed by Biden, led the union in a series of strikes last fall against Detroit's automakers that resulted in lucrative new contracts. Next up for a union vote are workers at Mercedes factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who will vote on UAW representation in May. Fain said he was not surprised by the size of the union's win Friday after the two previous losses. "This gives workers everywhere else the indication that it's OK," Fain said. "All we've heard for years is we can't win here, you can't do this in the South, and you can." Worker Vicky Holloway of Chattanooga was among dozens of cheering workers celebrating at an electrical workers union hall near the VW plant. She said the overwhelming vote for the union came this time because her colleagues realized they could have better benefits and a voice in the workplace. "Right now, we have no say," said Holloway, who has worked at the plant for 13 years. "It's like our opinions don't matter." In a statement, Volkswagen thanked workers for voting and said 83.5% of the 4,300 production workers cast ballots in the election. Six Southern governors, including Tennessee's Bill Lee, warned the workers in a joint statement this week that joining the UAW could cost them their jobs and threaten the region's economic progress. But the overwhelming win is a warning to nonunion manufacturers, said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies the union. "This is going to send a powerful message to all of those companies that the UAW is knocking at the door, and if they want to remain nonunion, they've got to step up their game," Masters said. Shortly after the Detroit contracts were ratified, Volkswagen and other nonunion companies handed their workers big pay raises. Last fall, Volkswagen raised production worker pay by 11%, lifting top base wages to $32.40 per hour, or just over $67,000 per year. VW said its pay exceeds the median household income for the Chattanooga area, which was $54,480 last May, according to the U.S. Labor Department. But under the UAW contracts, top production workers at GM, for instance, now earn $36 an hour, or about $75,000 a year excluding benefits and profit sharing. By the end of the contract in 2028, top-scale GM workers would make over $89,000.

Peshawar, Pakistan — A Pakistani province has issued a flood alert due to glacial melting and warned of heavy loss of life, officials said Saturday. The country has witnessed days of extreme weather, which killed scores of people and destroyed property and farmland. Experts say Pakistan is experiencing heavier rains than normal in April because of climate change. In the mountainous northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has been hit particularly hard by the deluges, authorities issued a flood alert because of the melting of glaciers in several districts. They said the flood could worsen and that people should move to safer locations ahead of any danger. “If timely safety measures are not taken, there is a possibility of heavy loss of life and property due to the expected flood situation,” said Muhammad Qaiser Khan, from the local disaster management authority. Latest figures from the province said that 46 people, including 25 children, have died in the past five days due to rain-related incidents. At least 2,875 houses and 26 schools have either collapsed or been damaged. The southwest province of Baluchistan has also been battered by rainfall. It said it had limited resources to deal with the current situation but if the rains continued, it would look to the central government for help. In 2022, downpours swelled rivers and at one point inundated one-third of Pakistan, killing 1,739 people. The floods also caused $30 billion in damage. Pakistan's monsoon season starts in June.

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Bangui, Central African Republic — At least 20 people have drowned in Central African Republic after a ferry sank while carrying passengers on a river, witnesses said Saturday. The wooden ferry was carrying more than 300 people to a funeral over the Mpoko River in the capital, Bangui, on Friday when it started to collapse, witnesses told The Associated Press on Saturday. Local boat pilots and fishermen were the first to react and rescued victims and collected bodies from the river before the emergency services arrived. One fisherman who was involved in the rescue, Adrien Mossamo, said that at least 20 bodies were found while waiting for the military to arrive.  “It’s a horrible day,” he said. The death toll is rising as the military takes over the search, officials at Bangui University Hospital Center said. The exact number of deaths is currently unknown, and the government didn't comment. Civil society groups and local political parties sent their condolences in social media posts and called for an inquest into the sinking.

Palu, Indonesia — Indonesia’s elite counterterrorism police arrested eight suspected militants in recent days believed to be part of a new cell linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked group, authorities said Saturday. Police conducted raids in Central Sulawesi province between Tuesday and Thursday, said Agus Nugroho, the provincial police chief, adding that five suspects were arrested in the city of Palu, two in Sigi, and one in Poso which is a known extremist hotbed. Two laptops, several cellular phones and documents, including jihadi books were seized and suspects were being interrogated, Nugroho said. National Police spokesperson Trunoyudo Wisnu Andiko said the arrests were the result of information obtained from 59 suspected militants detained in Oct. 2023. “(The eight) all actively participate in organization activities, particularly in military-style training and collecting funds for alleged plans of terror acts,” Andiko told reporters at the National Police headquarters in the capital, Jakarta. He added that convicted leaders of the group and veteran fighters in Afghanistan were recruiting and training new members. Jemaah Islamiyah is responsible for several attacks inside Indonesia, namely, the 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. A court banned the group in 2008 and constant counterterrorism crackdowns, supported by the United States and Australia, have weakened it further. Last year, police arrested a total of 142 suspected militants, including four women, and fatally shot two others on southern Sumatra island. Militant attacks on foreigners in Indonesia have been largely replaced in recent years by smaller, less deadly strikes targeting the government, mainly police and anti-terrorism forces, and people militants consider to be infidels, inspired by Islamic State group tactics abroad.

Islamabad — “I have a sword hanging over my head,” says journalist Asad Ali Toor. A vocal critic of Pakistan’s state institutions, Toor was arrested February 26 for, among other charges, running a malicious campaign against government officials. He has pleaded not guilty and is out on bail, awaiting trial. As Pakistan enters a third month of suspension of social media platform X — formerly Twitter — Toor, with nearly 300,000 followers, said disrupting access to the platform is an embarrassment for the state.  “What it has contributed, except controversy and embarrassment to the state of Pakistan, that we are a nuclear armed country, and we are threatened by a social media app? Toor said. X went down on February 17 in Pakistan, hours after a high-level government official, who later walked back his claim, declared he was involved in large-scale vote manipulation. Pakistan held general elections on February 8, but the results were marred by wide-spread allegations of rigging. On Wednesday April 17, when Pakistan marked two months of disruption in services, the Interior Ministry told the Islamabad High Court it sought the suspension of X based on information from intelligence agencies.  “The decision to impose a ban on Twitter/X in Pakistan was made in the interest of upholding national security, maintaining public order, and preserving the integrity of our nation," the ministry’s report to the court stated. In March, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, or PTA, an independent regulator, revealed to the Sindh High Court that it shut down the platform at the request of the interior ministry. Until then, government officials had denied any ban on the use of X, citing the lack of formal notice.   Pakistanis, including government ministers, have been using X through virtual private networks, or VPNs, raising questions about the practical value of the suspension. Access to the platform is often restored temporarily, causing confusion about the status of the ban.  Criticism vs. fake news In recent years, Pakistani authorities have blamed social media for an alleged rise in the spread of fake news, and anti-state propaganda.  Since May 9, 2023, when former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s supporters stormed military installations to protest his arrest, the government and the military have lashed out at social media more frequently. X is a politically active platform in Pakistan, despite a small user base. There, Khan’s diehard supporters and others openly call out the state-backed crackdown on the former prime minister’s political party and criticize the military’s alleged interference in civilian matters. Toor criticized Pakistan’s top court on social media after it upheld a decision in January to deprive Khan’s party of its electoral symbol, and he says the state labels any news reporting against the establishment as fake news.   “What is the fake news? When people talk about the election? Which everybody says is a very controversial election. You start calling it fake news,” Toor said. “When anybody reports against the establishment, you call it fake news.” Amber Rahim Shamsi, director of the Karachi-based Center for Excellence in Journalism, said there is some truth to the Pakistani government’s claims of a rise in the spread of misinformation.  Shamsi’s team runs a fact-checking platform called iVerify and recorded spikes in misinformation claims in the lead-up to the February 8 poll. But suspending X, she said, hurts rather than helps.  “It is also hindering the ability of journalists and independent fact checkers to, you know, monitor, trace and correct disinformation, misinformation,” Shamsi said. She is also part of a group of four petitioners challenging the suspension of X in the Sindh High Court. Most of the false information, she said, is shared via Whatsapp, a popular private messaging app owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta.  Platform vs. user Justifying the suspension of X, Pakistan’s interior ministry told the high court the platform was not registered locally as a company and ignored requests by the cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency to remove content maligning the chief justice of Pakistan. Haroon Baloch, a senior program manager at Bytes for All, a Pakistani think-tank that focuses on information and communication technologies, told VOA that requirement written into the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (2016) is an attempt to influence a company and gain access to users’ data.    “They [Pakistani authorities] wanted data of Pakistani social media users to be housed or hosted through Pakistan and not be hosted outside Pakistan,” Baloch explained.  X’s response After staying silent on the suspension, X’s Global Government Affairs account finally posted a brief statement Thursday. “We continue to work with Pakistani Government to understand concerns,” it said. Baloch said that for media freedom workers, engaging with X to seek support is almost impossible. “Before [Elon] Musk took over, a team in Singapore was accessible but now there’s no team looking into human rights or policy,” he said. Last year in March, Musk famously tweeted that emails to Twitter’s press team will automatically get the poop emoji as a response. Bytes for All research indicates the global content hosting company Akamai may be helping Pakistan implement the ban by rejecting requests from users to connect to X. VOA asked Akamai if Pakistani authorities had requested help to block users. The company said via email that it was “currently not aware of any such requests.” Pakistan’s plan Responding to VOA while interacting with media, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said it was the government’s prerogative to take actions “in the best interest of Pakistan.”    “Surely, the country will take its own decision in the light of different reasons, which were the basis of — you know — putting it off [suspending it],” he said. Taking an apparent swipe at Washington’s efforts to ban TikTok unless it cut ties with its Chinese parent company, Dar said “may I ask those countries that they also have put [a] ban on certain apps … so, one country is OK, and Twitter banned in Pakistan is not OK?”  The Sindh High Court gave the interior ministry a week from April 16 to rescind its letter to suspend X. Shamsi is not hopeful access will be fully restored soon but said her petition has already had an important victory. “We have been able to extract information from relevant ministries that the basis of the ban is a letter from the Ministry of Interior, and this was not information publicly available,” she said. That revelation worries Baloch about the independence of the PTA. “We can see it’s a clear influence on the regulator,” he said. Both Shamsi and Toor say they believe the ban is driven by the Pakistani state’s aversion to dissent. They say it is a sign the state is failing to present a strong counter-narrative. “[The] answer of fake news is not banning any platform,” Toor said as he braces for a possibly prolonged legal battle. “Answer [to] fake news is more credible news.”

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Islamabad — Pakistan criticized the United States on Saturday for penalizing four international companies on charges they are aiding its ballistic missile program. “Pakistan rejects political use of export controls,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch. The reaction came a day after Washington imposed sanctions on three Chinese companies and one Belarus-based firm for their alleged links to Islamabad’s missile development program. “These entities have supplied missile‐applicable items to Pakistan’s ballistic missile program, including its long-range missile program,” the U.S. State Department said on Friday. It noted that the sanctions are part of U.S. efforts to disrupt and target “proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery” and strengthen the global nonproliferation “regime.” “Such listings of commercial entities have taken place in the past as well on allegations of links to Pakistan's ballistic missile program without sharing any evidence whatsoever,” Baloch said. “We have pointed out many times the need to avoid (the) arbitrary application of export controls and for discussions between concerned parties for an objective mechanism to avoid erroneous sanctions on (the) technology needed purely for socio-economic development pursuits,” she added. Baloch renewed Islamabad’s readiness to discuss “end-use and end-user verification mechanisms so that legitimate commercial users are not hurt by discriminatory application of export controls. She asserted that Pakistan has in the past come across instances where mere suspicions led to the blacklisting of foreign companies.   The U.S. identified the alleged suppliers to Islamabad’s ballistic missile program as China-based Xi’an Longde Technology Development Company Limited, Tianjin Creative Source International Trade Co. Ltd., Granpect Company Limited, and Belarus-based Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant. Under the U.S. executive order, all assets, properties, and interests in properties of the sanctioned companies located within the United States or controlled by U.S. citizens must be blocked and reported to the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC. The listing makes it illegal for any individual or entity within the United States, or any U.S. citizen to engage in any transactions involving property or interests in property of designated or blocked companies unless authorized by a specific or general license issued by OFAC or exempted. Without naming the U.S. or any other country, Baloch stated that “the same jurisdictions" claiming “strict adherence” to the nonproliferation of weapons and military technologies would sometimes make exceptions "for some countries” and have even waived licensing requirements to help them obtain advanced military equipment. “Such discriminatory approaches and double standards are undermining the credibility of nonproliferation regimes and accentuating military asymmetries, which, in turn, undermine the objectives of regional and global peace and security,” she said. “This is leading to arms buildup (in the region)." Baloch was apparently referring to Washington’s close military and nuclear cooperation with Pakistan’s archrival India. The nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors have fought three wars, and their decades-old territorial dispute over the divided Kashmir region remains the primary source of mutual tensions.