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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.

Beijing, — China conducted "combat patrols" Sunday in the South China Sea, its army said, the same day the Philippines, the United States, Japan and Australia held their first joint drills in the disputed waters. The maritime activities took place days before U.S. President Joe Biden was due to hold the first trilateral summit with the leaders of the Philippines and Japan, with growing tensions over the hotly contested South China Sea on the agenda. Beijing's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command said it was organizing "joint naval and air combat patrols in the South China Sea". "All military activities that mess up the situation in the South China Sea and create hotspots are under control," it said in a statement, in an apparent swipe at the other drills being held in the waters. The Philippine military said its drills with the United States, Australia and Japan "demonstrated the participating countries' commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific through interoperability exercises in the maritime domain." Dubbed the "Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity", the drills included naval and air force units from all four countries. They performed a communication exercise, division tactics, and a photo exercise, the Philippine statement said Sunday. The Japanese embassy in Manila said in a previous statement that "anti-submarine warfare training" would be included in the drills. Further details about the Chinese military activities in the waterway were not announced. The United States has sought to strengthen defense cooperation with its allies in the region to counter China's growing influence. Top U.S officials have repeatedly declared the United States' "ironclad" commitment to defending the Philippines, a treaty ally, against an armed attack in the South China Sea — to the consternation of Beijing. China claims nearly all of the waterway despite competing claims from other countries, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its stance has no legal basis. China's Coast Guard said Saturday it had "handled" a situation at a disputed reef on Thursday, when it claimed several ships from the Philippines were engaged in "illegal" operations. "Under the guise of 'protecting fishing', Philippine government ships have illegally violated and provoked, organized media to deliberately incite and mislead, continuing to undermine stability in the South China Sea," spokesman Gan Yu said. "We are telling the Philippines that any infringement tactics are in vain," Gan said, adding that China would "regularly enforce the law in waters under [its] jurisdiction." Relations between Manila and Beijing have deteriorated under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, who has taken a stronger stance than his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte against Chinese actions in the sea. There have been several confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels near contested reefs in recent months, including collisions. Marcos issued a statement on March 28 vowing the country would not be "cowed into silence, submission, or subservience" by China. He also said the Philippines would respond to recent incidents with countermeasures that would be "proportionate, deliberate, and reasonable."

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.

Tehran — An adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned Sunday that Israeli embassies are "no longer safe" after a strike in Syria which Tehran blamed on Israel killed seven Revolutionary Guards members. "The embassies of the Zionist regime are no longer safe," Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.  Tehran has vowed to avenge Monday's air strike on Damascus that levelled the Iranian embassy's consular annex, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members including two generals. "The resistance front is ready; how it (the response) will be, we have to wait," Safavi said, noting that "confronting this brutal regime is a legal and legitimate right." He also noted that multiple Israeli embassies around the region "have been shuttered." There was no immediate comment from Israel. Monday's attack, which Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said killed 16 people, was the fifth raid on Syria in a week blamed on Israel.  Among the dead were generals Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi who were senior commanders in the Quds Force, the IRGC's foreign operations arm.  Zahedi, 63, had held several commands during a career spanning more than 40 years.  He was the most senior Iranian soldier killed since a United States missile strike at Baghdad airport in 2020 killed Quds Force chief General Qasem Soleimani.  Monday's strike in Damascus took place against the backdrop of the Gaza war which began with Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel which killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians.  Tehran backs Hamas but has denied any direct involvement in the attack which sparked massive Israeli retaliation against the Gaza Strip.  The Hamas-run health ministry in the Palestinian territory says at least 33,175 people have been killed there during six months of war.  Iran does not recognize Israel, and the two countries have fought a shadow war for years.  The Islamic republic accuses Israel of having carried out a wave of sabotage attacks and assassinations targeting its nuclear program. 

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KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwandans are commemorating 30 years since the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed by government-backed extremists, shattering the small East African country that continues to grapple with the horrific legacy of the massacres. Rwanda has shown strong economic growth in the years since, but scars remain and there are questions about whether genuine reconciliation has been achieved under the long rule of President Paul Kagame, whose rebel movement stopped the genocide and seized power. Kagame, who is praised by many for bringing relative stability but vilified by others for his intolerance of dissent, will lead somber commemoration events Sunday in the capital, Kigali. Foreign visitors include a delegation led by Bill Clinton, the U.S. president during the genocide, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Kagame lit a flame of remembrance and laid a wreath at a memorial site holding the remains of 250,000 genocide victims in Kigali. The killings were ignited when a plane carrying then-President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down over Kigali. The Tutsis were blamed for downing the plane and killing the president. and became targets in massacres led by Hutu extremists that lasted over 100 days in 1994. Some moderate Hutus who tried to protect members of the Tutsi minority were also killed. Rwandan authorities have long blamed the international community for ignoring warnings about the killings, and some Western leaders have expressed regret. Clinton, after leaving office, cited the Rwandan genocide as a failure of his administration. French President Emmanuel Macron, in a prerecorded video ahead of the Sunday's ceremonies, said on Thursday that France and its allies could have stopped the genocide but lacked the will to do so. Macron's declaration came three years after he acknowledged the "overwhelming responsibility" of France — Rwanda's closest European ally in 1994 — for failing to stop Rwanda's slide into the slaughter. Rwanda's ethnic composition remains largely unchanged since 1994, with a Hutu majority. The Tutsis account for 14% and the Twa just 1% of Rwanda's 14 million people. Kagame's Tutsi-dominated government has outlawed any form of organization along ethnic lines, as part of efforts to build a uniform Rwandan identity. National ID cards no longer identify citizens by ethnic group, and authorities imposed a tough penal code to prosecute those suspected of denying the genocide or the "ideology" behind it. Some observers say the law has been used to silence critics who question the government's policies. Rights groups have accused Kagame's soldiers of carrying out some killings during and after the genocide in apparent revenge, but Rwandan authorities see the allegations as an attempt to rewrite history. Kagame has previously said that his forces showed restraint in the face of genocide. Kagame is expected to give a speech and a night vigil will be held later on Sunday as part of a week of remembrance activities. Naphtal Ahishakiye, the head of Ibuka, a prominent group of survivors, told The Associated Press that keeping the memory of the genocide alive helps fight the mentality that allowed neighbors to turn on each other, killing even children. Mass graves are still being discovered across Rwanda 30 years later, a reminder of the scale of the killings . "It's a time to learn what happened, why it happened, what are the consequences of genocide to us as genocide survivors, to our country, and to the international community," said Ahishakiye. He said his country has come a long way since the 1990s, when only survivors and government officials participated in commemoration events. "But today even those who are family members of perpetrators come to participate." Kagame, who grew up a refugee in neighboring Uganda, has been Rwanda's de facto ruler, first as vice president from 1994 to 2000, then as acting president. He was voted into office in 2003 and has since been reelected multiple times. A candidate for elections set for July, he won the last election with nearly 99% of the vote. Rights activists and others say the authoritarian Kagame has created a climate of fear that discourages open and free discussion of national issues. Critics have accused the government of forcing opponents to flee, jailing or making them disappear while some are killed under mysterious circumstances. Kagame's most serious political rivals are his Tutsi ex-comrades now living in exile. Though mostly peaceful, Rwanda also has had troubled relations with its neighbors. Recently, tensions have flared with Congo, with the two countries' leaders accusing one another of supporting armed groups. Relations have been tense with Burundi as well over allegations that Kigali is backing a rebel group attacking Burundi. And relations with Uganda are yet to fully normalize after a period of tensions stemming from Rwandan allegations that Uganda was backing rebels opposed to Kagame.

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.

Moscow — Flood waters were rising in two cities in Russia's Ural mountains on Sunday after Europe's third longest river burst through a dam, flooding at least 6,000 homes and forcing thousands of people to flee with just their pets and a few belongings.  A string of Russian regions in the Ural Mountains and Siberia, alongside parts of neighboring Kazakhstan have been hit in recent days by some of the worst floods in decades.  The Ural River, which rises in the Ural Mountains and flows into the Caspian Sea, swelled several meters in just hours on Friday due to melt water, bursting through a dam embankment in the city of Orsk, 1,800 km (1,100 miles) east of Moscow.  More than 4,000 people were evacuated in Orsk as swathes of the city of 230,000 were flooded. Footage published by the Emergencies Ministry showed people wading through neck-high waters, rescuing stranded dogs and traveling along flooded roads in boats and canoes.   President Vladimir Putin ordered Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov to fly to the region. The Kremlin said on Sunday that flooding was now also inevitable in the Urals region of Kurgan and the Siberian region of Tyumen.  Putin had spoken to the governors of the regions by telephone, the Kremlin said.  The Orenburg region's governor, Denis Pasler, said the floods were the worst to hit the region since records began.  He said that flooding had been recorded along the entire course of the 2,400 km (1,500 mile) Ural River, which flows through Orenburg region and then through Kazakhstan into the Caspian Sea.   Russian media cited Orenburg region authorities as estimating the cost of flood damage locally as around $227 million, and saying that flood waters would dissipate only after April 20.  In Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Saturday the floods were his country's largest natural disaster in terms of scale and impact for 80 years.  Flood warnings were issued in other Russian regions and Kurenkov said the situation could get worse very fast.   "The water is coming, and in the coming days its level will only rise," said Sergei Salmin, the mayor of Orenburg, a city of at least 550,000 people. "The flood situation remains critical."  Emergencies Minister Kurenkov said bottled water and mobile treatment plants were needed, while local health officials said vaccinations against Hepatitis A were being conducted in flooded areas.   Local officials said the dam in Orsk was built for a water level of 5.5 meters (18 feet)yet the Ural River rose to 9.6 meters (31.5 feet).  Federal investigators opened a criminal case for negligence and the violation of safety rules over the construction of the 2010 dam, which prosecutors said had not been maintained properly.  The Orsk oil refinery suspended work on Sunday due to the flooding. Last year, the Orsk Refinery processed 4.5 million tons of oil.

Des Moines, Iowa — The jackpot has a cash value of $621 million if the winner chooses to take a lump sum rather than an annuity paid over 30 years. The winning numbers were: 22, 27, 44, 52, 69 and the red Powerball 9. No one had won Powerball's top prize since New Year's Day, leading to 41 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. The $1.326 billion prize ranks as the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history. The odds of winning were 1 in 292.2 million. DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Powerball player in Oregon won a jackpot worth more than $1.3 billion on Sunday, ending a winless streak that had stretched more than three months. The single ticket matched all six numbers drawn to win the jackpot worth $1.326 billion, Powerball said in a statement. The jackpot has a cash value of $621 million if the winner chooses to take a lump sum rather than an annuity paid over 30 years, with an immediate payout followed by 29 annual installments. The prize is subject to federal taxes, while many states also tax lottery winnings. The winning numbers drawn early Sunday morning were: 22, 27, 44, 52, 69 and the red Powerball 9. Until the latest drawing, no one had won Powerball's top prize since New Year's Day, amounting to 41 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner, tying a streak set twice before in 2022 and 2021. The $1.326 billion prize ranks as the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history. As the prizes grow, the drawings attract more ticket sales and the jackpots subsequently become harder to hit. The game's long odds for the weekend drawing were 1 in 292.2 million. Saturday night's scheduled drawing was held up and took place in the Florida Lottery studio just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday to enable one of the organizers to complete required procedures before the scheduled time of 10:59 p.m., Powerball said in a statement. "Powerball game rules require that every single ticket sold nationwide be checked and verified against two different computer systems before the winning numbers are drawn," the statement said.  "This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win. Tonight, we have one jurisdiction that needs extra time to complete that pre-draw process." Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Sophomore Christian Adams expected he would be studying Chinese when he enrolled at West Virginia University, with a dream of working in labor or immigration law. He didn’t foresee switching his major to politics, a change he made after West Virginia’s flagship university in September cut its world language department and dozens of other programs in subjects such as English, math and music amid a $45 million budget shortfall. And he certainly didn’t expect to be studying — or teaching fellow students — about community organizing. But the cuts, denounced as “draconian and catastrophic" by the American Federation of Teachers, catalyzed a different kind of education: Adams is co-founder of The West Virginia United Students’ Union. The leading oppositional force against the cuts, the union organized protests, circulated petitions and helped save a handful of teaching positions before 143 faculty and 28 majors ultimately were cut. Disappointed, they say their work is far from done. Led by many first-generation college students and those receiving financial aid in the state with the fewest college graduates, members say they want to usher in a new era of student involvement in university political life. “Really, what it is for WVU is a new era of student politics,” Adams said. The movement is part of a wave of student organizing at U.S. colleges and universities centering around everything from the affordability of higher education and representation to who has access to a diverse array of course offerings and workplace safety concerns. The university in Morgantown had been weighed down financially by enrollment declines, revenue lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and an increasing debt load for new building projects. Other U.S. universities and colleges have faced similar decisions, but WVU's is among the most extreme examples of a flagship university turning to such dramatic cuts, particularly to foreign languages. The union called the move to eliminate 8% of majors and 5% of faculty a failure of university leadership to uphold its mission as a land-grant institution, charged since the 1800s with educating rural students who historically had been excluded from higher education. A quarter of all children in West Virginia live in poverty, and many public K-12 schools don't offer robust language programs at a time when language knowledge is becoming increasingly important in the global jobs market. As the school continues to evaluate its finances, the union plans to keep a close eye on its budget, mobilize against any additional proposed cuts and prepare alternative proposals to keep curriculum and faculty positions in place. Another key goal is monitoring and influencing the school's search for its new president after university head E. Gordon Gee retires next year. Gee, the subject of symbolic motions from a faculty group that expressed no confidence in his leadership, said last year the curriculum cuts came at a time of change in higher education, and that WVU was “leading that change rather than being its victim.” Higher education nationwide has become "arrogant" and “isolated,” he said, warning that without change, schools face “a very bleak future.” Union Assembly of Delegates President and Co-Founder Matthew Kolb, a senior math major, said his group doesn't want a new president who believes running the school as a corporate or business entity is the only option for getting things done properly. “We know, when push comes to shove, the results of that are 143 faculty getting shoved off a cliff with one vote," he said. Adams, a north central West Virginia native who was the first in his family to attend college immediately after high school, said he could transfer to another institution and continue his studies in Chinese. But much of the reason he chose WVU was because of a commitment to the state and a desire to improve its socioeconomic outlook. “A lot of West Virginians feel trapped in West Virginia and feel like they have to leave — not a lot of people choose to stay here," Adams said. “I made the conscious decision to go to WVU to stay here to help improve my state.” The cuts meant reaffirming that commitment, “despite basically being told by my state's flagship university that, ‘Your major is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter, it’s not worth our time or money to teach.’” Student union organizations have existed for hundreds of years worldwide. Commonly associated in the U.S. with on-campus hubs where students access dining halls, club offices and social events, in the United Kingdom the union also takes on the form of a university-independent advocacy arm lobbying at the institutional and national level. Members say they envision the West Virginia United Students’ Union similar to those in the U.K., and it’s a concept they want to help grow. That has meant a lot of work behind the scenes, strategizing to keep students interested and engaged and building relationships with the university campus workers union, student government and other organizations. That work with the union helped keep up student morale as they watched faculty scramble to find new jobs and rewrite curriculum, student Felicia Carrara said. An international studies and Russian studies double major from North Carolina, Carrara said she and many of her peers chose West Virginia University because it was affordable. “The fact that we would now have to pivot to try and find the scholarships and other money to be able to afford an education anywhere else, or just not get a degree at all or get a degree that’s really bare bones. It’s just really disheartening," she said. “When you come to higher ed, you think things are going to be better than they were in high school and in middle school,” she said. “And it’s very sad finding out that they’re not.” Andrew Ross, a senior German and political science double major, will be the last graduate to major in the language. A 31-year-old nontraditional student who transferred to WVU in 2022 after earning an associate's degree, Ross learned about the proposed cuts days after he returned home from a summer program in Germany he attended with the help of a departmental scholarship. Ross, now the student union's assembly of delegates vice president, said the cuts “felt like getting slapped in the face.” The university told him to drop the German major. He's proud of his effort to finish the degree after twists and turns, but it's bittersweet. “In some ways and it makes me sad because I hope there isn’t someone who is still growing up that can’t have this experience — we all deserve it,” he said. “This university isn’t just failing me, it’s failing the state.”

Moscow — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit China on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the deepening partnership between Moscow and Beijing. Talks between Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who extended the invitation to the Russian minister, will include bilateral cooperation as well as "hot topics," such as the crisis in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Reuters reported last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin chief's first overseas trip of his new presidential term. China and Russia declared a "no limits" partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the deadliest land war in Europe since World War II. The United States casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat, while U.S. President Joe Biden argues that this century will be defined by an existential contest between democracies and autocracies. Putin and Xi share a broad world view, which sees the West as decadent and in decline just as China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from quantum computing and synthetic biology to espionage and hard military power. China-Russian trade hit a record of $240.1 billion in 2023, up 26.3% from a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data. Chinese shipments to Russia jumped 46.9% in 2023 while imports from Russia rose 13%. China-United States trade fell 11.6% to $664.5 billion in 2023, according to the Chinese customs data. One year into the Ukraine war, China in 2023 published a 12-point position paper on settling the Ukraine crisis. Russia has said China's position is reasonable. Switzerland in January agreed to hold a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has put forward a peace formula that calls for a full Russian withdrawal from all territory controlled by Russian forces. Reuters reported in February that Putin's suggestion of a cease-fire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the United States after contacts between intermediaries. Moscow says that Zelenskyy's proposals amount to a ridiculous ultimatum and that the proposed meeting in Switzerland was being used by the West to try to garner support for Ukraine among the Global South. Russia says that any peace in Ukraine would have to accept the reality of its control over just under one fifth of Ukraine and include a broader agreement on European security. Ukraine says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.

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.

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 — U.S. President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a White House summit set to bolster trilateral maritime cooperation in the South China Sea, a major move to counter Beijing. The first-of-its-kind gathering by the United States and its two Asian allies is set for Thursday. It’s part of Biden’s strategy to stitch together existing bilateral alliances into broader “mini-laterals” to amplify U.S. influence in Asia. The U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral focuses on freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Last year, Biden hosted a similar meeting with Japan and South Korea to deal with the threat from North Korea. Manila is keen to firm up trilateral maritime cooperation, namely plans for joint naval patrols by the three countries, a move that would likely trigger a strong reaction from Beijing. “Joint patrols are something that we've already discussed extensively with Japan and the United States,” Philippines Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez told reporters in a briefing last week. “And I think that we're hoping that this will come into fruition very soon.” The White House declined to confirm such plans, reiterating only that the leaders would have much to discuss in their meeting. “Certainly, the tensions in the South China Sea are not going away,” said national security spokesperson John Kirby in response to VOA’s question during a White House briefing Thursday. “That was an issue that was raised in the president's call with President Xi [Jinping of China] just a couple of days ago.” Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder also declined to confirm, telling VOA only that the goal of trilateral efforts in the South China Sea is to “ensure that the Indo-Pacific region remains free, it remains open and that there is security and stability throughout the region.” However, an announcement on joint naval patrols is “widely expected” at the summit, said Gregory Polling, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. Following increased Philippine naval activities with regional partners including the United States, Japan and Australia, the trilateral naval patrol “is an obvious next step,” he told VOA. The meeting and expected announcement will come amid ramped-up tension in the South China Sea, where for weeks Chinese coast guard ships have deployed water cannons against Philippine vessels to block a resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal. Since 1999, Philippine soldiers have guarded a wrecked ship left on the shoal to maintain the country’s sovereignty claims over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The Philippines is a U.S. ally under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which means skirmishes between Manila and Beijing in the Spratlys are a problem for Washington. “While we're focused on Taiwan for obvious reasons, conflict between the U.S. and China remains more likely in the South China Sea,” Polling told VOA. “The ceiling on that might be lower; we're not going to escalate into a general war in the South China Sea. But a lower-level military conflict is uncomfortably possible.” More robust Japan role The South China Sea is a vital passageway for Japan's global supply chains, a reaffirming factor for Tokyo as Washington draws it into a more robust military role in the region. “There is tremendous expectation for Japan,” said Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center. Tokyo is “at the heart of regional security,” she told VOA, considering its involvement in the two trilateral formations and in the quadrilateral strategic security dialogue among Australia, India, Japan and the United States, also known as the Quad. For Japan's Kishida, the summit will be another chance to flex his country’s diplomatic muscles as it stands beside Washington, its strongest ally. Kishida wants to showcase the transformation of Japan’s bilateral alliance with Washington that serves peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific to a “global partnership that stands as the cornerstone of international liberal order,” said Yuki Tatsumi, co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the Japan Program at the Stimson Center. The key deliverables, she told VOA, include plans for a modernized alliance command and control and plans for a consultative body for defense industrial cooperation. Japan has been an anchor of various U.S. regional alliances and partnership in the region. Ahead of the summit, Tokyo and Manila are already in talks on a Reciprocal Access Agreement that would enhance shared military operations and training. US lagging on building prosperity While many analysts applaud Biden on his strong and coordinated security approach for the region, they say Washington is lagging Beijing when it comes to building regional prosperity. “We're not seeing as much leadership on the economic front,” Goto said. “That will be something that there will be greater demand for.” In previous meetings with Biden, Kishida reiterated Japan’s calls for Washington to join the 2018 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The 11-country bloc representing one of the largest free-trade areas in the world is a reincarnation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement pushed in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama and then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Then-President Donald Trump withdrew from the TPP in 2017. Kishida and Biden are also likely to discuss Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel. Ahead of the American presidential election in November, the potential deal has become embroiled in protectionist campaign rhetoric. Biden sees steel as critical to national security and has said the company should remain domestically owned. His prospective opponent, Trump, has promised to block the $14 billion deal if he is elected again. Trilateral aside, Biden will honor Kishida, whom he last met at the G7 summit in Hiroshima last year, with an official visit Wednesday. He will meet separately with Marcos on Thursday, a repeat of the Philippines leader’s White House visit last May. Analysts say the frequent meetings with the leaders underscore Biden’s desire for the U.S. to remain a Pacific power, despite the president’s focus being pulled toward the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Carla Babb contributed to this report.