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Since January 2021, the Biden administration has greatly expanded the number of immigrants who are eligible for Temporary Protected Status.

The post How Temporary Protected Status has expanded under the Biden administration appeared first on Pew Research Center.

GENEVA — Human rights experts accuse all parties to the conflict in the Central African Republic of perpetrating serious human rights abuses and violations against the civilian population. The experts, who held a high-level dialogue at the United Nations Human Rights Council Thursday to assess developments in the CAR, warned that the ongoing violence and instability in the country have adversely affected the human rights of civilians and kept the country mired in poverty. Nada Al-Nashif, the U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights, blamed armed groups for “51% of the abuses and state actors for the remaining 49% of violations.” She said between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, 2,100 abuses and violations were reported by U.N. peacekeeping forces, known as MINUSCA, affecting 4,676 victims. Among the victims, she said, were hundreds of women and girls who were “subjected to conflict-related sexual violence.” “These violations were mainly attributable to armed groups, but also to the military and other security personnel,” she said, adding that the warring parties have committed other serious violations, as well, such as extrajudicial executions, trafficking, forced recruitment and use, and forced marriage. She said children also are victims of grave human rights violations, “with the recruitment and use of children and abduction and sexual violence being the most frequent. …Armed groups remain the main perpetrators in this regard.” Al-Nashif pointed out the government has taken some steps to improve the country’s deplorable human rights situation. However, she stressed that was only a first step, saying strengthened measures are urgently needed to eliminate all forms of exploitation and abuse. Responding to the deputy high commissioner’s remarks, Arnaud Djoubaye Abazene, CAR’s minister of state for justice, explained that his country’s years of experience with recurrent conflict and turbulence have led to “serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law of which women and girls are the main victims.” He said President Faustin-Archange Touadera was intent on rectifying the situation, noting that the president has placed “the promotion and protection of human rights at the epicenter of his public policy,” with particular emphasis on the rights of women and girls. He listed and recounted in detail the many new and revised constitutional laws and other legal remedies that have been implemented by his government related to gender-based violence. Some, he said, are aimed at ending discrimination, strengthening the rights of women, protecting women and children from abuse, and seeking justice for crimes against them. “During the criminal sessions of the Bangui Court of Appeal in 2020 and 2023, several criminal cases of rape were tried, and the perpetrators and accomplices found guilty were severely punished,” he said, adding that “several cases are currently being investigated at the level of the courts.” Joanne Adamson, deputy special representative of the secretary-general of the United Nations for MINUSCA, praised the government for “the significant progress it has made on human rights,” including the adoption of a national human rights policy, the extension of a plan of action to combat conflict-related sexual violence, and the government’s commitment to combat against impunity for sexual violence linked to conflict. “However, despite these efforts and the improvements in certain areas, the security situation remains volatile throughout the country and continues to bring challenges in the context of human rights, particularly in remote areas where armed groups remain active,” she said. “Conflict-related sexual violence remains a reality because of the ongoing gender inequalities and harmful traditional practices,” and that often causes abused women to remain silent. Adamson said many victims do not seek justice because they “fear reprisals, are ashamed or fear stigmatization and do not speak out.” She said allowing women to participate more fully in political and public life would help to “consolidate peace, reconciliation and development.” Deputy High Commissioner Al-Nashif noted that the Central African Republic ranks 188th out of 191 countries in terms of gender equality. “Gender-based discrimination and exclusion from public and political life remain deeply entrenched,” she said. “It is regrettable that the revised Electoral Code, adopted by the National Assembly in January 2024, did not include a provision on the implementation of a 35% quota for women in line with the Gender Parity Law of 2016.” Adamson called on the government to “ensure the political participation of women in all decision-making bodies through effective legal frameworks and policies.”

Two female entrepreneurs in Mozambique have started businesses that help fight climate change and reduce pollution. Amarilis Gule has this story from the capital, Maputo. Michele Joseph narrates.

BEIJING — At 53, Guan Junling is too old to get hired at factories anymore. But for migrant workers like her, not working is not an option.  For decades, they have come from farming villages to find work in the cities. Toiling in sweatshops and building apartment complexes they could never afford to live in, they played a vital role in China's transformation into an economic powerhouse.  As they grow older, the first generation of migrant workers is struggling to find jobs in a slowing economy. Many are financially strapped, so they have to keep looking.  "There is no such thing as a 'retirement' or 'pensions' for rural people. You can only rely on yourself and work," Guan said. "When can you stop working? It's really not until you have to lie in bed and you can't do anything."  She now relies on house cleaning gigs, working long days to squirrel away a little money in case of a health emergency. Migrant workers can get subsidized health care in their hometowns, but they have little or no coverage elsewhere. If Guan needs to go to hospital in Beijing, she has to pay out of pocket.  As China's population ages, so are its migrant workers. About 85 million were over 50 in 2022, the latest year for which data is available, accounting for 29% of all migrant workers and up from 15% a decade earlier. With limited or no pensions and health insurance, they need to keep working.  About 75% said they would work beyond the age of 60 in a questionnaire distributed to 2,500 first-generation migrant workers between 2018 to 2022, according to Qiu Fengxian, a scholar on rural sociology who described her research in a talk last year. The first-generation refers to those born in the 1970s or earlier.  Older workers are being hit by a double whammy. Jobs have dried up in construction due to a downturn in the real estate market and in factories because of automation and the slowing economy. Age discrimination is common, so jobs tend to go to younger people.  "For young people, of course, you can still find a job, positions are available, though the wage is not high enough," said Zhang Chenggang of Beijing's Capital University of Economics and Business, where he directs a center researching new forms of employment.  "But for older migrant workers, there simply are no positions," said Zhang, who conducted field studies at four labor markets across China late last year. "Now, the problem is that no matter how low the wage is, as long as someone pays, you will take the job."  Some job recruiters contacted by AP said older workers don't work well or have underlying illnesses. Others declined to answer and hung up.  Many are turning to temporary work. Zhang Zixing was looking for gigs on a cold winter day late last year at a sprawling outdoor labor market on the outskirts of Beijing.  He said he was fired from a job delivering packages because of his age about three years ago, when he reached 55. In December, he was earning 260 yuan (about $35) a day installing cables at construction sites.  Zhang Quanshou, a village official in Henan province and a delegate to China's National People's Congress, said some older migrant workers are just looking for work near their hometowns, while others still head to larger cities.  "Some older migrant workers are finding temporary jobs, so it is important to build the temporary job market and provide a better platform for such services," Zhang, the Communist Party secretary of the village, said in an emailed response to questions during a recent annual meeting of the Congress.  Guan, who comes from a rice-farming region in the north, worked on a clothing factory assembly line until she was laid off when she was in her 40s. She then worked various jobs in different cities, winding up in Beijing in 2018.  She works seven days a week, partly because she's afraid labor agencies won't call again if she turns an offer down.  Over February's Lunar New Year holiday, when migrant workers traditionally go home to visit their families, she stayed in Beijing as a caretaker for an elderly woman, because the woman needed help and she needed the money.  "People either want someone who's educated or young, and I don't meet either of those requirements," said Guan, who dropped out after middle school because her parents had only enough money to educate their son. "But then I think, regardless of how other people look at me, I have to survive."  Guan worries jobs will be even harder to find when she reaches 55. The retirement age for women in China is 50 or 55, depending on the company and type of work. For men, it is 60.  Lu Guoquan, a trade union official, has proposed relaxing age limits for jobs, judging workers by their physical condition instead of their age and making it easier for older people to find work through labor markets and online platforms.  "A large number of farmers have entered cities, making an important contribution to the modernization of our country," said his proposal, made to an advisory body during the recent national congress and seen by the AP.  As workers grow older, "they are gradually becoming a relatively vulnerable group in the labor market and face a number of thresholds and problems in continuing to work," it said.  Lu, director of the general office of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, declined an interview request.  Duan Shuangzhu has spent 25 years collecting trash in one Beijing neighborhood after giving up a life of raising sheep and cows in north China's Shanxi province when he was in his 40s. He gets up at 3:30 a.m. seven days a week to make his rounds. For that, he earns 3,300 yuan ($460) a month and has a basement room to live in.  Duan's wife stayed on the farm, where she looks after their grandchildren. Duan has managed to save money for himself, his children and his grandchildren, but never paid into a pension system, directing what little he earns to his family.  That fits the pattern Qiu found in her research, which she published in a book last year. Older migrant workers moved to the cities to improve the lives of their children and other relatives, not themselves, she found. Most have limited or no savings, and few have climbed the economic ladder. They hoped their children would, but most ended up as migrant workers, too.  Most migrant workers' earnings were spent on their children's marriages, homes and education, Qiu said in her talk. "Basically, they did not begin working for themselves and planning for their own late years until the age of 55."  Duan, at 68, has no plans to quit.  "As long as I can work every day, it's enough to survive," he said, standing next to a set of community rubbish bins, color-coded for recycling. "I didn't grow up in a wealthy family — just filling my stomach each day is enough for me."

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ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND — Rebuilding Baltimore's collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge could take anywhere from 18 months to several years, experts say, while the cost could be at least $400 million — or more than twice that.  It all depends on factors that are still mostly unknown. They range from the design of the new bridge to how swiftly government officials can navigate the bureaucracy of approving permits and awarding contracts.  Realistically, the project could take five to seven years, according to Ben Schafer, an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University.  "The lead time on air conditioning equipment right now for a home renovation is like 16 months, right?" Schafer said. "So, it's like you're telling me they're going to build a whole bridge in two years? I want it to be true, but I think empirically it doesn't feel right to me."  Others are more optimistic about the potential timeline: Sameh Badie, an engineering professor at George Washington University, said the project could take as little as 18 months to two years.  The Key Bridge collapsed Tuesday, killing six members of a crew that was working on the span, after the Dali cargo ship plowed into one its supports. Officials are scrambling to clean up and rebuild after the accident, which has shuttered the city's busy port and a portion of the Baltimore beltway.  The disaster is in some ways similar to the deadly collapse of Florida's Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was struck by a freighter in Tampa Bay in 1980. The new bridge took five years to build, was 19 months late and ran $20 million over budget when it opened in 1987.  But experts say it's better to look to more recent bridge disasters for a sense of how quickly reconstruction may happen.  Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, cited the case of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota, which collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007. The new span was up in less than 14 months.  "It's the best comparison that we have for a project like this," Tymon said. "They did outstanding work in being able to get the approvals necessary to be able to rebuild that as quickly as possible."  Tymon expects various government agencies to work together to push through permits, environmental and otherwise.  "It doesn't mean that all of the right boxes won't get checked — they will," Tymon said. "It'll just be done more efficiently because everybody will know that this has to get done as quickly as possible."  One looming issue is the source of funding. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the federal government will pay for the new bridge, but that remains to be seen.  "Hopefully, Congress will be able to come together to provide those resources as soon as possible so that that does not become a source of delay," Tymon said.  Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota helped to obtain funding quickly to rebuild the I-35W bridge in her state. But she said replacing the Baltimore span could be more complicated.  She noted that the I-35W bridge, a federal interstate highway, was a much busier road with about 140,000 vehicle crossings a day, compared with about 31,000 for the Maryland bridge.  "But where there's a will there's a way, and you can get the emergency funding," Klobuchar said. "It's happened all over the country when disasters hit. And the fact that this is such a major port also makes it deserving of making sure that this all gets taken care of."  Badie, of George Washington University, said the cost could be between $500 million and $1 billion, with the largest variable being the design.  For example, a suspension bridge like San Francisco's Golden Gate would cost more, while a cable-stayed span, like Florida's Skyway Sunshine Bridge, which handles weight using cables and towers, would be less expensive.  Whatever is built, steel is expensive these days and there is a backlog for I-beams, Badie said. Plus, the limited number of construction companies that can tackle such a project are already busy with other jobs.  "A project like this is going to be expedited, so everything is going to cost a lot more," Badie said.  Hota GangaRao, a West Virginia University engineering professor, said the project could cost as little as $400 million. But that's only if the old bridge's pier foundations are used; designers may want to locate the new supports farther away from the shipping channels to avoid another collision.  "That's going to be more steel, more complicated construction and more checks and balances," GangaRao said. "It all adds up."  Norma Jean Mattei, an emeritus engineering professor at the University of New Orleans, said replacing the Key Bridge likely will take several years. Even if it's a priority, the process of designing the span, getting permits and hiring contractors takes a lot of time. Then you must build it.  "It's quite a process to actually get a bridge of this type into operation," she said. 

Since January 2021, the Biden administration has greatly expanded the number of immigrants who are eligible for Temporary Protected Status.

The post How Temporary Protected Status has expanded under the Biden administration appeared first on Pew Research Center.

LOS ANGELES — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries "Roots," has died. He was 87.  Gossett's first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed.  Gossett's cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor.  "Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamour, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It's about the humanity of the people that he stood for," his cousin said.    Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for "An Officer and a Gentleman."  He earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school's production of "You Can't Take It with You" while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury.  "I was hooked — and so was my audience," he wrote in his 2010 memoir "An Actor and a Gentleman."  His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for "Take a Giant Step." He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16.  "I knew too little to be nervous," Gossett wrote. "In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn't."  Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.  Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera.  In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of "A Raisin in the Sun" along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands.  He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in "Golden Boy" with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.  Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of "A Raisin in the Sun." He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people.  In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in "Companions in Nightmare," NBC's first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O'Neal.  This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff's officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car's roof before letting him go.  Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff's officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go.  "Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel," Gossett wrote in his memoir. "I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving."  After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned.  "Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight," he wrote. "But it was not going to destroy me."  In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.  He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn't exist.  Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as "Bonanza," "The Rockford Files," "The Mod Squad," "McCloud" and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on "The Partridge Family."  In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate's house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate's murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson's associates that night.  "There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet," he wrote.  Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father.  Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries "Roots," which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos.  Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in "An Officer and a Gentleman" opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role.  "More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor," he wrote in his memoir.  "The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like 'Enemy Mine,' 'Sadat' and 'Iron Eagle,'" Gossett said in Dave Karger's 2024 book "50 Oscar Nights."  He said his statue was in storage.  "I'm going to donate it to a library so I don't have to keep an eye on it," he said in the book. "I need to be free of it."  Gossett appeared in such TV movies as "The Story of Satchel Paige," "Backstairs at the White House, "The Josephine Baker Story," for which he won another Golden Globe, and "Roots Revisited."  But he said winning an Oscar didn't change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones.  He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of "The Color Purple."  Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu.  In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19.  He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.  Gossett's first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.

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 — After nearly three decades in Hong Kong, VOA's sister outlet Radio Free Asia has closed its physical bureau in the city and no longer has full-time staff there due to the declining press freedom landscape, the outlet announced in a statement Friday. "Concerns about the safety of RFA staff and reporters in Hong Kong have led us to restructure our on-the-ground operations there. While RFA will retain its official media registration, at this time we no longer have full-time personnel in Hong Kong and have closed our physical bureau," RFA President Bay Fang said in the statement. The announcement comes less than a week after Hong Kong enacted Article 23, a national security law that media watchdogs warn will further erode press freedom in the city. The new law is a domestic extension of the controversial national security law that Beijing imposed in 2020 that criminalized secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Article 23 builds on that legislation to also criminalize acts such as espionage, external interference and theft of state secrets. Press freedom groups, including Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, expressed concern about the new law. "By transposing the national security provisions imposed by Beijing into Hong Kong's domestic laws, the government hopes to restore the illusion of a territory governed by the rule of law while carrying on its campaign against independent voices," Cedric Alviani, RSF's Asia-Pacific bureau director, said in a statement before the law was enacted. "We urge democracies to build up pressure on Chinese authorities so that full press freedom is restored in the territory," Alviani continued. RFA, which opened its Hong Kong bureau in 1996, specifically cited Article 23 as a reason behind its departure from the city. "Actions by Hong Kong authorities, including referring to RFA as a 'foreign force,' raise serious questions about our ability to operate in safety with the enactment of Article 23," Fang said in the statement. VOA has reached out to the Hong Kong Security Bureau for a comment. For years, Hong Kong was lauded for its lively and free media environment, but the city's press freedom, along with other civil liberties, quickly deteriorated following the introduction of the national security law in 2020. Hong Kong and Chinese authorities have denied that the law is harming Hong Kong's media environment and instead say it has helped stabilize the city. The threats facing independent media in Hong Kong are exemplified by the ongoing national security trial of pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai. The 76-year-old British national stands accused of "collusion with foreign forces" under the national security law and sedition, both of which he rejects. If convicted, Lai faces life in prison. Hong Kong officials have denied that the trial against Lai is unfair, but press freedom groups and Western governments have condemned the charges as politically motivated and baseless. Although RFA is physically leaving Hong Kong, the outlet said it would continue to cover the city. "This restructuring means that RFA will shift to using a different journalistic model reserved for closed media environments," Fang said in the statement. "For our audiences in Hong Kong and mainland China, who rely on RFA's timely, uncensored journalism: rest assured, our programming and content will continue without disruption," she said.

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.

On, April 1, 2024, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is changing the filing location for concurrently filed Forms I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service; I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker; and I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, and for related Forms I-131, Application for Travel Document; I-765, Application for Employment Authorization; and I-824, Application for Action on an Approved Application or Petition, filed with the application package, from USCIS service centers to a USCIS lockbox.

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.

berlin — It was supposed to be a relaxing dinner with friends in Tbilisi, Georgia, before a move to Berlin. But things didn’t turn out as planned for Irina Babloyan. That evening, the Russian journalist suddenly fell ill. By morning, her head hurt, her hands and feet were red and burning, and her mouth tasted like metal. Doctors later determined poisoning was the most likely cause for the symptoms. The top suspect: Moscow. The incident occurred in October 2022. When Babloyan spoke with VOA this February, she was still suffering the physical and emotional consequences. Her experience underscores the lengths Moscow goes to in order to silence its critics, analysts say. For a while, Babloyan said, she stopped going to restaurants, fearing she might be targeted again. Now, she goes out just to feel normal, albeit with a degree of caution. “If I don’t do it, I will go crazy,” she said. Letting the attack disrupt her life is exactly what the perpetrators wanted, she believes, and Babloyan refuses to give in. “When someone wants to kill you, it’s kind of a difficult thing to understand,” she said. Babloyan is one of a handful of Russian exiles who are believed to have been poisoned since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. More suspected poisonings took place before then. In Berlin, Babloyan was treated at the same hospital as Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who was poisoned in 2020. VOA traveled to the German capital just days after Navalny’s death in a Siberian prison. Memorial flowers and candles had already piled up outside the Russian Embassy. Berlin police are investigating the cases of suspected poisonings of Russians in Germany. The Kremlin dismisses claims of being involved in such attacks. Russia’s Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Berlin did not reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment. Threats to journalists, inside and out of Russia, have increased since the invasion of Ukraine, watchdogs say, and independent media in the country quickly found themselves bound by new laws that effectively made coverage impossible. Outlets have been branded as “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations,” and 22 journalists — including two Americans — were in jail at the end of 2023, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists. The choices for Russia’s independent journalists are to continue working in Russia and risk prison, or to go into exile, where safety still is not a guarantee. Life on the outside When Babloyan’s symptoms began that night in October, the journalist was preparing to move to Berlin, where colleagues from her outlet, Echo of Moscow, were regrouping after Russian authorities forced them to close several months earlier. Resettling is difficult, and transnational repression only makes it harder, said Penelope Winterhager, managing director at the JX Fund. The threats facing exiled outlets means Winterhager and her entire team are conscious of security and wary of sharing their office address. But from the group’s Berlin building, the sound of the city’s afternoon traffic drifted up to the windows as she described how the JX Fund helps news outlets to regroup in exile and to navigate transnational repression. The phenomenon — in which hostile governments use legal action, threats or attacks to try to target critics outside their borders — aims to intimidate critics, Winterhager said. “They don’t want them to report anymore. They want to frighten them. And if people break into your apartment, if poisonings are happening, if you can only walk around with a bodyguard, this does make you afraid after a while,” she said. Journalists in exile agree. “It’s [an] illusion that when you’re not in Russia, you’re absolutely safe,” said Katerina Abramova, who heads communications at the exiled outlet Meduza. She moved to Latvia before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, then resettled in Berlin. In one of Berlin’s many parks, Abramova spoke about how Meduza decided to spread its staff across several countries. Given the prevalence of Moscow’s transnational repression, they thought it would be safer than having everyone based in one city. But harder still was preventing attacks on their website and coverage. Meduza has faced cyberattacks, and its website is blocked in Russia. The latter tactic, said Anastasiya Zhyrmont, threatens the very survival of exiled Russian media. Zhyrmont, who covers Eastern Europe for the digital rights group Access Now, met with VOA in Berlin’s Treptower Park. “The result is the media is simply dying out in exile because they cannot reach an audience within Russia,” Zhyrmont said. Trauma of exile When it comes to transnational repression, the media often cover the immediate incidents and their direct effects. But the protracted harassment leaves a mark on these journalists. In conversations with them, their deeper trauma is evident in their feelings of paranoia and guilt, loneliness and grief. In the age of Putin’s war in Ukraine, sacrifice is a way of life for Russia’s exiled reporters, said Ekaterina Fomina, who fled Russia shortly after it invaded Ukraine. "We left everything behind,” Fomina said. “For me, maybe it took even a year to realize that your past is erased. “You’re sacrificing everything in order to continue your job,” Fomina told VOA. A journalist who has worked for various independent Russian outlets, Fomina left her home country for Latvia before moving to the Czech Republic, and then on again. Now, Fomina won’t publicly say where she’s based out of fear that she would be physically surveilled by Russian authorities. She is already under investigation for spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian military. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years behind bars.   The accusation stems from a 2022 story Fomina published at the independent outlet iStories. In it, a Russian soldier confessed to killing a Ukrainian civilian. Speaking with VOA in what was her seventh apartment in two years, Fomina said, “You’re still a hostage in their hands, because they can influence your life. They can prosecute you even without you being there.” As she spoke, her rescue dog, Cooper — all black save for his white chest and front paws — paced uneasily. Fomina spoke to him soothingly in Russian. The frequent relocations have made it hard for them both to re-create a semblance of home. For Fomina, the legal harassment has only exacerbated the challenges that come with starting life over and over. “After these two years, you simply realize that there is no country and no place in the world where you belong,” said Fomina, who currently reports for the exiled outlet TV Rain, known in Russian as Dozhd. None of the exiled journalists who spoke with VOA feel particularly comfortable in exile. Part of the reason is that their lives still revolve around Moscow. As Meduza’s Abramova said, “You have two different lives.” To try to feel at home, Fomina brings two pieces of art by a Ukrainian artist to each new apartment. But those efforts can feel futile. “I live abroad, but psychologically, I live somewhere in between Russia and Ukraine, and probably on the battlefield,” she said. “You find a flat. You put your pictures there. And technically it’s your home, but it’s not a home for your heart.” With family and friends still in Russia and Ukraine, Fomina said she has a hard time enjoying her personal life as she puts all her energy into her work. The question that hangs over many exiled Russian journalists: Who would do this work if not for them? “Your readers need you now more than ever,” Abramova said. Babloyan agreed. “They need to have information. They need to listen to the truth. They need us,” she said. Babloyan still works for Echo. But even as coverage of her suspected poisoning passed, her life — and health — is far from normal. She still has problems with her skin, she said, and she doesn’t have the same energy that she had in the past. “But much better than a year ago. A year ago, I thought I’m going to die,” Babloyan said. One thing that helped keep Babloyan going is reporting. “The work — oh, my God, I can’t live without it,” she said. “If I stopped doing it, I would go crazy.”