Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - Voice of America
Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - June 25, 2024
We're going to talk a bit a little bit about this, but we're going to talk a little bit about it. >> This is The Daily News. I'm Tommy McNealy. He'll be correspondent in the deal between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the U.S. government. >> WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department. That will resolve a long-running legal saga over the publication of a trove of classified documents. Assange is scheduled to appear in the U.S. federal court in the Mariana Island, a U.S. Commonwealth in the Western Pacific, to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge. Prosecutors have agreed to a sentence of the five years Assange has already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting to avoid extradition to the U.S. to base charges. I'm Payah Pendulani. >> The European Union opens for more accession talks with Ukraine on Tuesday after key decades long effort to join the organization Reuters correspondent Alex Cohen. >> The launch of talks, the largely ceremonial, is an important step for a nation that has spilled blood and pushed through the reforms required in its pursuit of EU membership. Ukraine filed its request to join the EU days after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. U.S. membership is a validation of its fight to embrace European values. Ukraine cleared initial hurdles to accession in December by showing progress in fighting corruption and rebuilding its judiciary. Among other areas, the EU considers fundamental. The negotiations with the EU are expected to take years to concur. >> South Korea says it will consider sending arms to Ukraine after Russia and North Korea rattle the region and beyond by signing a pact to come to each other's defense in the event of a war. >> The comment from a senior presidential official came Thursday hours after North Korea's state media released details of that agreement, observers say, could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since he did the Cold War. >> Germany says it's extremely concerned about rising violence on Israel's border with Lebanon and the growing risk of a full-blown regional conflict, according to Foreign Minister Analina Birbok on the visit to the region on Monday. >> Together with our partners, we are working hard on training conditions that can prevent more suffering. The risk of the high-intended escalation and of all of war is brewing by the day. >> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled that Sunday Israel could move for four troops to the north where fighting against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has escalated on the border with Lebanon. It's really prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that says he will only accept a partial ceasefire deal that would not end the eight-month-long war in Gaza casting down on the viability of the U.S.-backed truce proposal. Netanyahu said he was ready to make a partial deal to bring back some of the 120 hostages still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but said that they're committed to continuing the war after a pause in order to complete the goal of eliminating Hamas. >> The espionage trial of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gerstich is set to begin in Russia this week. Reuters correspondent Trevor Coral more. >> Gerstichich is the first American journalist to be detained on spy charges in Russia since the Cold War. In could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, the FSB said it caught him, quote, "red-handed," trying to obtain military secrets. Russian prosecutors say Gerstich, carried out the illegal actions using, quote, "painstaking conspiratorial methods." They did not release any documentary evidence to back up the charge. The Wall Street Journal says Gerstichich was on a reporting assignment and has said the accusations are based on lies. It denies he is a spy and demands his release. The trial will take place behind closed doors. Those of Americans sweated through yet another scorching day while flood waters force evacuations in parts of the Midwest, including a town in Iowa whose own water level gauge was submerged. One person was killed during flooding in South Dakota, according to the governor, from the mid-Atlantic to Maine across the Great Lakes region and throughout the West of California, public officials cautioned residents about the dangers of excessive heat and humidity in Oklahoma, the heat index with the temperature fields like to the human body was expected to reach 107 degrees. The National Weather Service warned of the potential for rare tornadoes in the Northeast. You'll find more at VOANews.com. I'm Tommy McNeil, VOA News. ♪♪♪ Julian Assange makes a plea deal to get out of jail. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge and a deal with the U.S. Justice Department. UN Chief Antonio Cortere should accuse Israel of spreading misinformation about him. I've heard the same source many times saying that I never attacked Hamas, that I never condemned Hamas, that I am a supporter of Hamas. I asked for a statistic to be made by our colleagues. And celebrity chef Rachel Ray's charity work for Ukraine. You can keep them in your mind and on your lips and in your heart. Today is Tuesday, June 25th, and this is VOA's International Edition. ♪♪♪ I'm Scott Walterman. A major development in the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, he's due to plead guilty to violating U.S. espionage law in a deal that will end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia, ending a long legal odyssey. More now from associated press correspondent Haya Punjwani. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge and a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will resolve a long-running legal saga over the publication of a trove of classified documents. Assange is scheduled to appear in the U.S. federal court in the Mariana Islands, a U.S. Commonwealth in the Western Pacific, to plead guilty to an espionage act charge. Prosecutors have agreed to a sentence of the five years Assange has already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting to avoid extradition to the U.S. to face charges. I'm Haya Punjwani. Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump's administration over a WikiLeaks "The United States" in the United States. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. the United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. The United States is now a political party. 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And then there's a bit of space for the member state to make their laws. But all those legal provisions have to be in place. Give me an example of something that Ukraine might have to do to conform. Yeah, so one of the things that Ukraine was weak at before the whole scale invasion was in the area of corruption. And so if you look at the statistics of levels of corruption in countries, Ukraine was in the lower echelons of not such a good record. And so in order to be part of the EU that those records have to be approved. So if Ukraine does everything that they need to do and they do become a member of the EU, what does it mean for them? If you're a member of the EU, you're a member of the single market. So that's free movement of goods and services and capital and labor. It also means that they're part of the funds that the EU disperses. That means in the area of agricultural policy, that's one of the biggest investments that the EU makes. And it's member states. So Ukraine could expect to also receive funds for its vast agricultural production. They are a huge agricultural producer, right? The wheat particularly? Absolutely. They also have a large piece of land. So they will be larger than France when they enter. And that could also geopolitically be interesting because then the EU, as we know it, will have shifted to the east. And the EU is sensitive to sizes of countries usually focusing on numbers of peoples, but also the size of the country and its implications geopolitically. It's funny, I don't think people here in the United States realize how big Ukraine is. The land was. Exactly. It's a big country. Ukraine is larger than France, Spain and Germany. And that will change the dynamic, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm from Canada, right? So I live in Canada at this time. And so Canada is a huge large country and nobody really cares, right? Because we don't have a lot of people and our economy is not that strong. But there are moments in time when the sheer size of your landmass matters. I mean, within the EU context, the things that really matter is the number of people or the size of your economy. So that your country's large is not in a day-to-day sense crucial. But there are moments when it really matters. Yeah. And why does it matter to the EU? So, you know, we always think about relative power in funny ways. So we think of relative power as GDP per capita. So how wealthy are you? Do you have per population? If Ukraine comes in, the EU will not be built wealthier. In fact, it will be poorer because a poorer country comes in. So Europe as a whole per person will become poorer. But you will have more Europeans, more EU citizens. So as a total population, it will increase. And its size will increase. If you just look at the landmass of Europe, it's not actually very large. And so if suddenly you've added a significant amount of territory, in terms of its geographical coverage of the space of the earth, it's become bigger. So these little things matter depending on the context of what it is you're talking about. And as we mentioned about agriculture, it does have a lot of potential to make a huge impact on agriculture. And agriculture is something that you spend a lot of money on. So those things will differ. We'll have to see how it all shakes out and exactly when Ukraine will join. After all, Turkey was negotiating with the EU starting two decades ago. They never got there. So we don't know if Ukraine will join. It's just that they're on that trajectory. And at this point in time, it looks as if the EU is serious and may be able at some point even to take Ukraine in when it doesn't quite meet everything, but they'll anticipate changes. And they'll do already joining a little bit on this topic and not on that topic. And that would be new if they do that. But we don't know that for sure. Excellent. Thank you so very much for the time. Okay. You're welcome. Hey, Meeber Dunn, a professor of political science at the University of Victoria. We're following these other stories from around the world. A deli city minister has started an indefinite hunger strike to demand more drinking water for India's capital. We're tapped since some of its poorest neighborhoods are running nearly dry in the middle of a searing heat wave. Millions of Indians face water shortages every summer. When the water demand rises in farms worse this year because of the heat. Canada said on Monday it's considering whether or not to impose tariffs on China-made electric vehicles as it looks to align itself with allies against what they see as a heavily subsidized Chinese industry. French President Manuel Macron told a podcast episode on Monday that both the far right national rally party and the left wing new popular front coalition front runners in the parliamentary elections risk bringing civil war to France. In coverage of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump meet Thursday for a debate. For Ukraine is expected to be one of the top foreign policy questions. Joe Biden and Donald Trump both agree on the need to end the war in Ukraine. The foreign policy expert said Trump has been less specific about how to make that happen between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Walud de Marzielanski. He advocated only for the need to start some types of talks on negotiations and he said that he would be willing to engage in these negotiations between Putin and Zelensky. But he never expressed any or specified any of the designs or the future outline of this peace agreement. In this year's congressional fight to pass Ukraine aid, Trump said that assistance should be loans and not grants. We're thinking about making it in the form of a loan instead of just a gift. We keep handing out gifts of billions and billions of dollars. Trump says Europe should pay a greater share of helping Ukraine. But if re-elected, Trump will not want to be seen as having a lost debt war, says former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, John Hurst. We do know that Trump perceives himself as a strong man, does not want to be associated with foreign policy failure. And a Russian victory in Ukraine if Trump's presidents would look very much like a foreign policy failure. Trump's Republican party is split over Ukraine with some leaders viewing the war as a major U.S. security threat and others think it is a costly destruction. Russia, for many of members of the Republican foreign establishment, foreign policy establishment is viewed as a declining power. And hence the Russian-Ukrainian war from their standpoint is a conflict that needs to be settled as quickly as possible so that it does not drain the security resources of the United States. As President Biden leads the international coalition coordinating military assistance to Ukraine with more than 175 billion in U.S. aid, he says America will stand against unjust and unprovoked aggression for as long as it takes. The United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk, Europe is at risk, the free world will be at risk and bolding others to do what they wish to do as harm. Biden has partially removed restrictions on Ukraine's using U.S. weapons against military targets in Russia. That commitment means the policy of a second Biden term would likely mirror the first. With greater latitude for increasing economic pressure on Russia, says Catholic University of America professor Michael Kimmach. It's not as if they're determining their foreign policy on the basis of the election in some crude fashion, but there are limits and constraints. And those would be very different in a second term where Biden can no longer run for reelection in 2028, so he would be quite a bit freer. The candidate's differences over Ukraine reflect their different approaches to Russia, with Trump looking to improve ties with Moscow and Biden continuing to isolate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. That's the end of Moscow's video in New York, Washington. In your ways, international edition continues. I'm Scott Walterman, a friendly warning for Israel by Germany's Foreign Minister on Alina Berbak on Monday. These images from Gaza are traveling the globe, sparking strong emotions in the Arab world, but also in the U.S., in Europe, in my country, everywhere. Disbelief, sadness, anger. And as a friend of Israel, I want to be frank, this anger is not helping Israel to meet its security needs. To the contrary, it only serves Hamas's cynical, drive to provoke further escalation. At the United Nations, Secretary General Antonio Guterres accused Israel on Monday of spreading misinformation about him. Member States have a vested interest in not promoting misinformation, because sooner or later, the truth is discovered. I'll give you one example of misinformation about myself. I've heard the same source, many times, saying that I never attacked Hamas, that I never condemn Hamas, that I am a supporter of Hamas. I asked for a statistic to be made by our colleagues. I have condemned Hamas one hundred and two times, 51 of them in formal speeches, the others in different social platforms. So, I mean, the truth in the end always wins. Israel accused the U.N. of being biased against it. Kenya is finally sending police officers to Haiti. On Friday, the Kenyan government announced the first MSS mission personnel contingent will arrive in Port-au-Prince during the week of June 24. They will depart Kenya tomorrow, June 25. This is just the first of several milestones in the process to restore security and prosperity in Haiti. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. And finally, Rachel Ray has been a celebrity chef with a national TV show in the United States. She has a line of cookware and cookbooks and so on. And now she spends a lot of time working for and working in Ukraine. Here's Amelia Nashulak with the story. Let's give it a shot. Rachel Ray has millions of followers on social media, a handful of Emmy Awards, as well as appearances in top US TV shows and animated films. With COVID-19 pandemic, her house burned down and her dog died. She went to get another rescue from a shelter. The lady who was training my dog was the sister of a gentleman that worked with Andri. 730 days. Andri Fute is president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. In the summer of 2022, he brought Ray to Ukraine for the first time. She herself purchased over 10,000 individual first eight kids that went to the front lines to our boys and girls there. She's now an ambassador of the Unbroken National Rehabilitation Center in Lviv. Ray remembers when she met the Steppanenko family who suffered from a Russian missile strike at the Kramatorska railway station. It overwhelmed me that a little girl could say, "Hey, do you like my earrings?" And she has no limbs. She's sitting on the bed, and her mom has one leg, and her grandmother was destroyed, blown up in front of her. Her grandmother's dead, and her little brother's sitting on the bed next to her. Her mom's over here, all of them in one room, and they're just so grateful and happy to be alive. Since then, Ray has brought culinary equipment and medical supplies to Ukraine, as well as held workshops in orphanages and hospitals during her every visit. I read a bunch of Ukrainian recipes, and I kind of made my own concoctions. We always do demonstrations, and chats, and fun things when we're here. But the reason we're at the facilities, we're building out a kitchen there, and that will serve 4,000 beds three times a day. But during her latest visit to Ukraine, I tell people all the time, if you can't go yourself to Ukraine, or you can't give a lot of money to Ukraine, you can, and it's free. You can keep them in your mind, and on your lips, and in your heart. And that's what everyone in the world should be doing that believes in democracy. Ray hopes to return to Ukraine in the fall of 2024. This will be her seventh visit. I'm Anamos Shredek for VOA News in the League of Ukraine. This has been International Edition on the Voice of America. On behalf of everyone at VOA, thank you so much for spending this time with us. For pictures, stories, videos, and more, follow VOA News on your favorite social media platform, on our apps, and online at VOANews.com. In Washington, I'm Scott Walterman. Next, an editorial reflecting the views of the United States government. Civil society in China received another blow in June when two activists were sentenced to harsh prison terms after being found guilty of subversion against the state. Independent journalist and women's rights defender, Hwang Shwekeen, who was a prominent voice in the Me Too movement in China, and who also reported on protests in Hong Kong, was sentenced to five years in prison. Labor rights activist Wang Zianbing, who advocated for workers with occupational diseases and physical disabilities, was sentenced to three years and six months. The two were tried together in secret after being held and pre-trial detention for almost 1,000 days. In a written statement, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States condemns the unjust sentencing of Hwang and Hwang. He noted their lengthy pre-trial detention and their trial closed to journalists and to the public. These sentences demonstrate the PRC's continued efforts to intimidate and silence civil society, he declared. "We urge the PRC to immediately release Hwang and Hwang, as well as other individuals, unjustly detained for exercising their fundamental freedoms," said spokesperson Miller. The number of such individuals remains unknown, but the PRC is recognized as the non-governmental organization Freedom House has said to be a global leader in such detentions. The first paragraph in the State Department's most recent human rights report on China under the category of arbitrary arrest is both telling and grim. Authorities detained or arrested persons on poorly defined allegations of revealing state secrets, subversion, and other crimes to suppress political dissent and public advocacy. Any piece of information could be retroactively designated a state secret, such as information on criminal trials, commercial activity, and any government activity. Authorities also used vaguely worded charges of picking quarrels and provoking trouble broadly against many civil rights advocates. A counter espionage law granted authorities the power to require individuals and organizations to cease any activities deemed a threat to national security. State Department spokesperson Miller said, "We continue to call on the PRC to live up to its international commitments and to respect the human rights of all persons, including freedom of expression and fair trial guarantees. We also urge the PRC to accept the many recommendations made this year during the PRC's universal periodic review of its human rights record." >> That was an editorial.