Author: PolitCens

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TOKYO — Oppenheimer finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Japanese filmgoers’ reactions understandably were mixed and highly emotional.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima when he was 3, said he has been fascinated by the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often called “the father of the atomic bomb” for leading the Manhattan Project.

“What were the Japanese thinking, carrying out the attack on Pearl Harbor, starting a war they could never hope to win?” he said, sadness in his voice, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

He is now chairperson of a group of bomb victims called the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization and he saw Oppenheimer at a preview event. “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said.

Oppenheimer does not directly depict what happened on the ground when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, turning some 100,000 people instantly into ashes, and killed thousands more in the days that followed, mostly civilians.

The film instead focuses on Oppenheimer as a person and his internal conflicts.

The film’s release in Japan, more than eight months after it opened in the U.S., had been watched with trepidation because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

Former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka, who spoke at a preview event for the film in the southwestern city, was more critical of what was omitted.

“From Hiroshima’s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted,” he was quoted as saying by Japanese media. “The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.”

Some moviegoers offered praise. One man emerging from a Tokyo theater Friday said the movie was great, stressing that the topic was of great interest to Japanese, although emotionally volatile as well. Another said he got choked up over the film’s scenes depicting Oppenheimer’s inner turmoil. Neither man would give his name to an Associated Press journalist.

In a sign of the historical controversy, a backlash flared last year over the “Barbenheimer” marketing phenomenon that merged pink-and-fun Barbie with seriously intense Oppenheimer. Warner Bros. Japan, which distributed Barbie in the country, apologized after some memes depicted the Mattel doll with atomic blast imagery.

Kazuhiro Maeshima, professor at Sophia University, who specializes in U.S. politics, called the film an expression of “an American conscience.”

Those who expect an anti-war movie may be disappointed. But the telling of Oppenheimer’s story in a Hollywood blockbuster would have been unthinkable several decades ago, when justification of nuclear weapons dominated American sentiments, Maeshima said.

“The work shows an America that has changed dramatically,” he said in a telephone interview.

Others suggested the world might be ready for a Japanese response to that story.

Takashi Yamazaki, director of Godzilla Minus One, which won the Oscar for visual effects and is a powerful statement on nuclear catastrophe in its own way, suggested he might be the man for that job.

“I feel there needs to an answer from Japan to Oppenheimer. Someday, I would like to make that movie,” he said in an online dialogue with Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan.

Nolan heartily agreed.

Hiroyuki Shinju, a lawyer, noted Japan and Germany also carried out wartime atrocities, even as the nuclear threat grows around the world. Historians say Japan was also working on nuclear weapons during World War II and would have almost certainly used them against other nations, Shinju said.

“This movie can serve as the starting point for addressing the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as humanity’s, and Japan’s, reflections on nuclear weapons and war,” he wrote in his commentary on Oppenheimer published by the Tokyo Bar Association. 
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washington — Washington and Tokyo are gearing up to unveil plans to restructure the U.S. military command in Japan in what would be the biggest upgrade to their security alliance in decades.

China has already objected, saying it does not want to be a target of the defense plans that Washington and Tokyo are expected to announce at a summit in April.

“China always believes that military cooperation between states should be conducive to regional peace and stability, instead of targeting any third party or harming the interests of a third party,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday via email to VOA.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson pushed back in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday. “The U.S.-Japan alliance has served as the cornerstone of peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and across the world for over seven decades and has never been stronger,” the spokesperson said.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Japanese counterpart, Akiba Takeo, met at the White House on Tuesday to discuss “next steps to finalize key deliverables” that President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will announce when they meet April 10 in Washington.

During a news briefing Monday in Tokyo, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said his country was in discussion with Washington about strengthening the command and control of their militaries to enhance readiness.

The discussion comes as Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral John Aquilino told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on March 20 that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is preparing to invade Taiwan by 2027.

‘Long overdue’

Ralph Cossa, president emeritus and WSD-Handa chair in peace studies at the Pacific Forum, told VOA via email on Wednesday, “The time is long overdue to upgrade the command structure in Japan so that the U.S. and Japanese militaries can operate together more seamlessly” in the region.

The plan to restructure the command is meant to “strengthen operational planning and exercises” between the two and is seen as “a move to counter China,” according to the Financial Times, which first reported about the plan on March 24.

James Schoff, senior director of the U.S.-Japan NEXT Alliance Initiative at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, said, “This is probably the single most important step that the allies can take to enhance deterrence against regional threats and respond to any sort of major crisis.”

“This is especially true at this moment as Japan prepares to stand up its first joint operational command and introduces longer-range counterstrike capabilities,” he said via email to VOA on Wednesday.

Japan plans to set up a joint operations command by March 2025 to improve coordination among its air, ground and maritime Self-Defense Forces (JSDF).

The updated command structure within U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ) is expected to complement Japan’s establishment of its joint operations command.  

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said, “Although the details are yet to be determined, the plan is to enhance the USFJ’s authority within INDOPACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command].”

He continued via email to VOA on Tuesday that the revised U.S. military command “will also have greater institutional ability to communicate and coordinate with the JSDF.”

Currently, USFJ has limited authority to conduct joint operations with Japan. The commander of USFJ needs to coordinate its operation with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, located in Hawaii.

On Tuesday, Biden nominated Air Force Major General Stephen F. Jost as the new commander of USFJ and promoted him to lieutenant general.

Schoff said that “the existing parallel chain of command would remain” in the U.S. and Japanese militaries rather than “a single allied chain of command for both U.S. and Japanese forces.”

This will be unlike the South Korean-U.S. Combined Forces Command led by a U.S. general during wartime.

James Przystup, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and its Japan chair specializing in alliance management in the Indo-Pacific, said the upgrades in U.S. military command in Japan “would serve to enhance U.S.-Japan defense cooperation and deterrence in Northeast Asia, both with respect to North Korea and China.”

He continued via email to VOA on Wednesday, “As for what this might look like in practice, the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command could be one model, but not necessarily the one [into which it] eventually evolves.” 
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MASSAPEQUA PARK, New York — Donald Trump attended Thursday’s wake of a New York City police officer gunned down in the line of duty and called for “law and order” as part of his attempt to show a contrast with President Joe Biden and focus on crime as part of his third White House campaign.

The visitation for Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Monday, was held in suburban Massapequa on Long Island. Police said the 31-year-old Diller was shot below his bulletproof vest while approaching an illegally parked car in Queens.

Diller, who was married and had a 1-year-old son, was rushed to a hospital, where he died.

The visit by Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came as Biden was also in New York for a previously scheduled fundraiser with former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Trump has accused Biden of lacking toughness, and his campaign sought to contrast his visit with Biden’s fundraiser.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, in a post on X, noted Trump’s visit and said, “Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the president has spoken with New York City’s mayor, but she said she didn’t have any “private communications to share” when asked if Biden had spoken to the family of the officer who was killed. Jean-Pierre said the administration’s hearts go out to the officer’s family.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, she said Biden has supported law enforcement throughout his entire career and took a dig at Trump’s record.

“Violent crime surged under the previous administration,” Jean-Pierre said. “The Biden-[Vice President Kamala] Harris administration have done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime.”

After visiting in the funeral home with Diller’s family, Trump spoke outside to news reporters with about a dozen local police officers, half in patrol uniforms, half in tactical gear, forming as a backdrop behind him.

“We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently. This is not working. This is happening too often,” Trump said.

He did not elaborate.

Mixed views on law enforcement

Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, has called for shoplifters to be shot immediately, and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.

He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.

Massapequa and the surrounding South Shore towns have long been a popular destination for city police officers and firefighters looking to set down roots on Long Island. Though Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York, this area is a heavily Republican part of Long Island that Trump won in the 2020 presidential election.

On Thursday, prosecutors in Queens charged Diller’s alleged shooter, Guy Rivera, with first degree murder and other charges. Rivera, who was shot in the back when Diller’s partner returned fire, was arraigned from his hospital bed. Rivera’s lawyers at Legal Aid declined to comment, according to spokesman Redmond Haskins.

Biden has pledged that the federal government will work more closely with police to combat gun violence and crack down on illegal guns.

New FBI statistics released earlier this month showed that overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike. The FBI data found murders dropped 13% in the last three months of 2023 compared with the same period the year before, and violent crime overall was down 6%.

The FBI’s report was in line with the findings of the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, which found that homicides were down an average of 10% from the year before in a survey of 32 cities, though it found violent crime still remained higher than before the coronavirus pandemic in many cities.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to go to France and Belgium next week to try to build unity among allies in support of Ukraine in its war against Russia and of Israel in its war against Hamas. Analysts say he faces a tough task. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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washington — House Republicans on Thursday invited President Joe Biden to testify before Congress as part of their impeachment inquiry into him and his family’s business affairs. 

Representative James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the Democratic president, inviting him to sit for a public hearing to “explain, under oath,” what involvement he had in the Biden family businesses. 

“In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” the Kentucky Republican wrote. 

While it is highly unlikely that Biden would agree to appear before lawmakers in such a setting, Comer pointed to previous examples of presidents’ testifying before Congress. 

“As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the subcommittee on criminal justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974,” Comer wrote. 

The invitation comes as the monthslong inquiry into Biden is all but winding down as Republicans face the stark reality that it lacks the political appetite from within the conference to go forward with an actual impeachment. Nonetheless, leaders of the effort, including Comer, are facing growing political pressure to deliver something after months of work investigating the Biden family and its  international business transactions. 

The White House has repeatedly called the inquiry baseless, telling Republicans to “move on” and focus on “real issues” Americans want addressed. 

“This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment,” spokesman Ian Sams said in a social media post last week. “Call it a day, pal.” 

The committee has asserted that the Bidens traded on the family name, an alleged influence-peddling scheme in which Republicans are trying to link a handful of phone calls or dinner meetings between Joe Biden, when he was vice president or out of office, and his son Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business associates. 

But despite dedicating countless resources over the past year, interviewing dozens of witnesses, including Hunter and the president’s brother James, Republicans have yet to produce any evidence that shows Joe Biden was directly involved in or benefited from his family’s businesses while in public office. 

Democrats have remained unified against the inquiry, with Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on Oversight, calling for his GOP counterpart to end the investigation absent any credible evidence. 

“The GOP impeachment inquiry has been a circus,” Oversight Democrats wrote on the social media platform X. “Time to fold up the tent.” 

Seeking testimony from the president could ultimately be the inquiry’s final act.  

Late last year, Republicans leading the investigation had privately discussed holding a vote on articles of impeachment in the new year, but growing criticism from within their party forced a shift in strategy. Now, Comer is eyeing potential criminal referrals of the family to the Justice Department, a move that will be largely symbolic and unlikely to be taken up by the department. 
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new york — A fundraiser for President Joe Biden on Thursday in New York City that also stars Barack Obama and Bill Clinton is raising a whopping $25 million, setting a record for the biggest haul for a political event, his campaign said. 

The eye-popping amount was a major show of Democratic support for Biden at a time of persistently low poll numbers. The president will test the power of the campaign cash as he faces off with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has already proved with his 2016 win over Democrat Hillary Clinton that he didn’t need to raise the most money to seize the presidency. 

The Radio City Music Hall event will be a gilded exclamation mark on a recent burst of presidential campaign travel. Biden has visited several political battlegrounds in the three weeks since his State of the Union address served as a rallying cry for his reelection bid. The event also brings together more than three decades of Democratic leadership. 

Obama hitched a ride from Washington to New York aboard Air Force One with Biden. They waved as they descended the plane’s steps at John F. Kennedy International Airport and got into the motorcade for the ride into Manhattan. Clinton was expected to meet them at the event. 

Colbert, musical performers

The hourslong fundraiser has different tiers of access depending on donors’ generosity. The centerpiece is an onstage conversation with the three presidents, moderated by late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert. There’s also a lineup of musical performers — Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo and Lea Michele — that will be hosted by actress Mindy Kaling. Thousands are expected, and tickets are as low as $225. 

More money gets donors more intimate time with the presidents. A photo with all three is $100,000. A donation of $250,000 earns donors access to one reception, and $500,000 gets them into an even more exclusive gathering. 

“But the party doesn’t stop there,” according to the campaign. First lady Jill Biden and DJ D-Nice are hosting an after-party at Radio City Music Hall with 500 guests. 

Obama and Clinton are helping Biden expand his already significant cash advantage over Trump. Biden had $155 million in cash on hand through the end of February, compared with $37 million for Trump and his Save America political action committee. 

The $25 million tally for the New York City event includes money from supporters who handed over cash in the weeks before the fundraiser for a chance to attend. It’s raising $5 million more than Trump raised during February. 

“This historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we’ve built,” said campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg. “Unlike our opponent, every dollar we’re raising is going to reach the voters who will decide this election — communicating the president’s historic record, his vision for the future and laying plain the stakes of this election.” 

Trump’s campaign is expecting to bring in $33 million at a big fundraiser next week in Palm Beach, Florida, according to a person familiar with the details who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm a number first reported by the Financial Times. 

Trump has kept a low profile in recent weeks, partially because of courtroom appearances for various legal cases, the bills for which he’s paying with funds from donors. He was in the New York area on Thursday, attending the Long Island wake of a New York City police officer who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Queens. 

His next political rally is scheduled for Tuesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Some Republican leaders have become concerned that his campaign doesn’t have the infrastructure ready for a general election battle with Biden. 

Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley issued a statement suggesting that Biden doesn’t support law enforcement or safety. 

“The contrast in leadership couldn’t be clearer,” Whatley said. “On the same day President Trump attended the wake of slain New York Police Department officer Jonathan Diller, Joe Biden wines and dines with celebrities at a fundraiser with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.” 

‘Polar opposite’

The facts, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, show that violent crime rose during Trump’s tenure while Biden’s administration has “done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime.” 

Leon Panetta, who served in top positions under Clinton and Obama, described the fundraiser as an important moment for Biden’s campaign. 

“What it does, first and foremost, is to broaden and reinforce the support of all Democrats,” he said. 

Panetta said Clinton and Obama, both known as effective political communicators, could help Biden develop a better pitch for his reelection. 

“I can’t think of two people who would be better at putting together that kind of message,” he said. 

Obama’s attendance Thursday is a reminder of his role in boosting Biden’s reelection. A joint fundraiser with Biden and Obama raised nearly $3 million in December. And people who served in the Obama administration are also raising money for Biden, scheduling their own event on April 11. 

“Consider what you’ll donate this cycle and do it now,” said an email sent to a network of people. “Early money is far more valuable to the campaign.”
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white house — Duty to warn. It is the obligation that the United States says it takes upon itself if the intelligence community is able to identify an impending threat to a particular country.

The U.S. acted on this duty just two weeks before the deadly attack near Moscow claimed by Islamic State. U.S. officials had warned Russia that extremists had imminent plans for such an attack, but the Kremlin brushed off the warning as mere blackmail and efforts to destabilize Russian society. John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, spoke to VOA about the terrorist attack.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: First of all, let’s jump into fresh accusations coming from Russia today. Russia’s FSB [intelligence] chief accused the U.K., the U.S. and Ukraine of being behind the Moscow attack on the concert hall. What’s your response to that?

Kirby: Nonsense.

VOA: The United States has exercised its duty to warn the Russian counterparts of an incoming threat. Why was it important for the American side to warn Russians given that they are waging the war against Ukraine and they turned into the world pariah?

Kirby: Because it was going to be innocent Russian people that were going to fall victim and in fact, did fall victim and we take our duty to warn very, very seriously. We have all kinds of problems with the way Mr. [Vladimir] Putin is leading and governing, if you want to call it that, and we certainly have significant concerns about the continued reckless and violent attacks on Ukrainian people and Ukrainian infrastructure.

But we don’t have a beef with the Russian people. And we had information that they were going to put Russian people, innocent Russians at risk from a terrorist threat. So you bet we informed Russian authorities as appropriate as we would do for any country.

VOA: I’m wondering what their response looked like. Was it a thank you note? Or did they say, “It’s nonsense, leave it to yourself?”

Kirby: I won’t characterize what the other side did with the information that we provided. We provided useful, we believe, valuable information about what we thought was an imminent terrorist attack. We also warned Americans about staying away from public places like concert halls. So we were very direct with our Russian counterparts appropriately to make sure that they had as much useful information as possible. What they did with it, or didn’t do with it, they’d have to speak to.

VOA: But can you confirm they received it?

Kirby: We know that they received the information and that they understood the information. Now what they did with it, again, is for them to speak to.

VOA: Who is responsible for this attack according to American intelligence? Is it ISIS? What was the motive behind the attack?

Kirby: ISIS is responsible for this attack.

VOA: ISIS-K?

Kirby: ISIS is responsible for this attack.

VOA: Do you know the motive here?

Kirby: ISIS claimed responsibility themselves. They all have the goals. Again, I’m not going to get into too much into intelligence matters. ISIS is responsible for this attack.

VOA: Moving on to Ukraine. What are the chances of Congress voting for the supplemental [budget to assist Ukraine] once legislators return from their break?

Kirby: Well, we hope that they will. I can’t predict what the House will do. It is going to be up to Speaker [Mike] Johnson and this is a moment for him to show some leadership. We know that if you were to put that on the floor it would get voted on resoundingly.

Ukraine and Ukrainian battlefield commanders would have the weapons and the capabilities that they need to better defend themselves, particularly in the East there in the Donbas where Russian forces continue to try to make progress pushing west out of Avdiivka. So it’s past time for us to be able to provide additional security assistance to Ukraine, it’s past time for that supplemental to get passed. And so we strongly urge Speaker Johnson to put it before a vote and let’s get moving.

VOA: Speaker Johnson, as reported by The Hill, may contemplate the possibility of providing Ukraine with a loan or another form of lend-lease arrangement to supply them with weapons, with the expectation of repayment. Would this administration be open to this option as an alternative to the supplemental?

Kirby: Our focus is on getting that supplemental passed. And as I’ve said before, and the speaker knows this, if he puts it on the floor, it’ll get approved. It has the votes. That’s the best way to support Ukraine.
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The United States is in dire need of construction workers, a builders’ industry group says. Nonprofits argue that the newly arrived migrants that have overwhelmed some U.S. cities in recent months could help. But not everyone agrees. Joti Rekhi reports from New York City.
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washington — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday that Chinese subsidies for clean energy industries create unfair competition that “hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world.”

Yellen said that during a visit she has scheduled to China, she intends to warn China its national underwriting for energy and other companies is creating oversupply and market distortion, among other problems.

“I intend to talk to the Chinese when I visit about overcapacity in some of these industries, and make sure that they understand the undesirable impact that this is having — flooding the market with cheap goods — on the United States, but also in many of our closest allies,” Yellen said in a speech in Norcross, Georgia.

Yellen said she believes those subsidies will enable China to flood the markets for solar panels, electric vehicle parts and lithium-ion batteries, thus distorting production in other economies and global prices.

“I will convey my belief that excess capacity poses risks not only to American workers and firms and to the global economy, but also productivity and growth in the Chinese economy, as China itself acknowledged in its National People’s Congress this month,” Yellen said. “And I will press my Chinese counterparts to take necessary steps to address this issue.”

Yellen is set for meetings in China in April, according to Politico. The Treasury has not yet confirmed her itinerary.

The secretary visited Georgia to see a newly reopened solar cell manufacturing plant, which according to the Treasury closed in 2017 because of competition from factories in China. It is reopening now, though, after tax credits in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act fueled increased anticipated demand for solar panels.

On Tuesday, China filed a complaint against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization, arguing the U.S.’s requirements for electric vehicle subsidies are discriminatory. Chinese officials did not comment on what prompted the decision.

Yellen said she hopes to have a “constructive” dialogue with Chinese officials about subsidies and oversupply issues. She said outreach to businesspeople and governments around the world had prompted her to issue this warning.

“These are concerns that I increasingly hear from government counterparts in industrialized countries and emerging markets, as well as from the business community globally,” Yellen said.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press. 
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Muslims, Jews and Christians gathered for a dinner marking the end of the daily fast for Muslims during Ramadan; the Fast of Esther for Jews; and the New Year (Nowruz), for those who celebrate it. VOA’s Nilofar Mughal reports from Potomac, Md. Narration: Bezhan Hamdard. Camera: Nilofar Mughal.
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Washington — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will discuss support for Ukraine during talks in Paris next week with French President Emmanuel Macron, the State Department announced Wednesday.

France is among the major military suppliers to Ukraine, which is facing an onslaught of Russian attacks.

President Joe Biden’s request for billions of dollars in new U.S. military aid to Kyiv is held up in the House of Representatives, led by the rival Republican Party.

“Secretary Blinken will meet with French President Macron to discuss support for Ukraine, efforts to prevent escalation of the conflict in Gaza and a number of other important issues,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

France has advocated for a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, whereas the United States, Israel’s main ally, recently let pass a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for a cease-fire during the month of Ramadan.

It will be the first visit in nearly two years to France by Blinken, a fluent French speaker who grew up partly in Paris. Macron paid a state visit to Washington in December 2022.

After Paris, Blinken will head to Brussels for talks among NATO foreign ministers ahead of the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July.

Blinken will also hold a three-way meeting in Brussels with EU leaders and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has been seeking to branch out from his country’s historic alliance with Russia.

Blinken and the European Union will address “support for Armenia’s economic resilience as it works to diversify its trade partnerships and to address humanitarian needs,” Miller said.

Armenia was angered last year by Russia’s failure to prevent Azerbaijan from retaking the Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian rebels.
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WASHINGTON — In December 1900, John Wesley Powell received “the most unusual Christmas present of any person in the United States, if not in the world,” reported the Chicago Tribune.

The gift for this first director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of Ethnology was a sealskin sack containing the mummified remains of an Alaska Native.

The sender was a government employee hired to hunt Indian “relics,” who said the remains had been difficult to acquire because “to come into the possession of a dead Indian is a great crime among the Indians.”

The report concluded that it was the only “Indian relic” of this kind at the Smithsonian and it was “beyond money value.”

As it turned out, it was not the museum’s only Alaskan mummy. In 1865, even before the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia, Smithsonian naturalist William H. Dall was hired to accompany an expedition to study the potential for a telegraph route through Siberia to Europe. In his spare time, he looted graves in the Yukon and caves on several Aleutian Islands.

After the U.S. sealed the deal with Russia, the San Francisco-based Alaska Commercial Company won exclusive trading rights and established more than 90 trading posts in Alaska to meet the U.S. demand for ivory and furs.

It also instructed agents “to collect and preserve objects of interest in ethnology and natural history” and forward them to the Smithsonian. Ernest Henig looted 12 preserved bodies and a skull from a cave in the Aleutians in 1874. He donated two to California’s Academy of Science and sent the remainder to the Smithsonian.

More than 30 years after the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act meant to return those remains, a ProPublica investigation last year estimated that more than 110,000 Native American, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native ancestors remain in public collections across the U.S.

It is not known how many Indigenous remains are closeted in private or overseas collections.

“Museums collected massive numbers, perhaps even millions,” said anthropologist John Stephen “Chip” Colwell, who previously served as curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. “Out of the 100 remains we [at the Denver museum] returned, I think only about five or seven individuals were actually even studied.”

So, what sparked this 19th-century frenzy for collecting human remains?

Reconciling science, religion

From the moment they first encountered Indigenous Americans, European thinkers struggled to understand who they were, where they came from, and whether they could be “civilized.”

The Christian bible taught them that all humans descended from Adam and that God created Adam in his own image. So why, Europeans wondered, did Native Americans, Africans and Asians look different?

Some Europeans theorized that all humans were created white, but dietary or environmental differences caused some of them to turn “brown, yellow, red or black.”

Other Europeans refused to accept that they shared a common ancestor with people of color and theorized that God created the races separately before he created Adam.

The birth of scientific racism

Presumptions that compulsory education and Christianization would force Native Americans to abandon their traditional cultures and become “civilized” into mainstream European-American culture proved untrue. So 19th-century scientists turned to advancements in medicine to “prove” the inferiority of Indigenous peoples.

“That’s when you see scientists like Samuel Morton, who invented a pseudoscience trying to place peoples within these social hierarchies based on their biology, and they needed bones to solidify those racial hierarchies,” said Colwell, who is editor-in-chief of the online magazine SAPIENS and author of “Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture.”

Morton was a Philadelphia physician who collected hundreds of human skulls of all races, mostly Native American, that were forwarded to him by physicians on the frontier. In his 1839 book “Crania Americana,” Morton classified human races based on skull measurements. Morton’s conclusions were used to support racist ideologies about the inferiority of non-white humans.

“They are not only averse to the restraints of education, but for the most part incapable of a continued process of reasoning on abstract subjects,” he wrote of Native Americans. “The structure of [the Native] mind appears to be different from that of the white man, nor can the two harmonise in their social relations except on the most limited scale.”

Despite Morton’s legacy as an early figure in scientific racism — ideologies that generate pseudo-scientific racist beliefs — his work earned him a reputation at the time as “a jewel of American science” and influenced the field of anthropology and public policy for decades.

In 1868, for example, the U.S. Surgeon General turned his attention away from the Civil War to the so-called “Indian wars” and instructed field surgeons to collect Native American skulls and weapons and send them to the Army Medical Museum in Washington “to aid in the progress of anthropological science.”

“For museums, especially the early years of collecting, it was a form of trophy keeping, a competition between museums,” Colwell told VOA. “And some of it was a competition between national governments to accumulate big collections to demonstrate their global and imperial aspirations.”

All the rest, he said, were fragments of morbid curiosity.
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NEW ORLEANS — A Texas law that allows the state to arrest and deport migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. will remain on hold for now, a federal appeals court ruled.

The 2-1 ruling late Tuesday from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals followed a March 20 hearing by a three-judge panel of the court. It’s just the latest move in a seesaw legal case over Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s strict new immigration law that is not yet ended.

The Justice Department has argued that Texas’ law is a clear violation of federal authority and would create chaos at the border. Texas has argued that President Joe Biden’s administration isn’t doing enough to control the border and that the state has a right to take action.

Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of former President Donald Trump and a former aide to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, dissented with the majority decision.

Oldham wrote that the Biden administration faced a high bar to take sovereign power that Texas has to enforce a law its people and leaders want. The judge predicted the same 2-1 split when the merits of the case are considered while the legal challenge plays out.

“There is real peril in this approach. In our federal system, the State of Texas is supposed to retain at least some of its sovereignty,” Oldham wrote. “Its people are supposed to be able to use that sovereignty to elect representatives and send them to Austin to debate and enact laws that respond to the exigencies that Texans experience and that Texans want addressed.”

The law was in effect for several hours on March 19 after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way. But the high court didn’t rule on the merits of the case. It instead sent the case back to the 5th Circuit, which then suspended enforcement while it considered the latest appeal.

The latest ruling keeps the block in place.

Spokespersons for Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately return phone calls for comment Wednesday morning.

The law signed by Abbott allows any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally, but that brief window while the law was in effect revealed that many sheriffs were unprepared, unable or uninterested in enforcing SB4 in the first place.

Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland of Terrell County, which touches more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) of border, said during a gathering of about 100 sheriffs at the state Capitol last week said there’s no practical way for him to enforce the law.

Cleveland said he has no way to transport people, the county jail has space for just seven people and the closest port of entry is a drive of more than 2 1/2 hours away.

Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith, president of the Texas Sheriff’s Association, said the law will have little effect in his jurisdiction in East Texas, which is closer to Louisiana and Oklahoma than Mexico which is nearly 400 miles (644 kilometers) away.

Once in custody, migrants could either agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the U.S. or be prosecuted on misdemeanor charges of illegal entry. Migrants who don’t leave could face arrest again under more serious felony charges.

Texas did not announce any arrests during the brief time the law was previously in effect. Authorities have offered various explanations for how they might enforce the law. Mexico has said it would refuse to take back anyone who is ordered by Texas to cross the border.

The law is considered by opponents to be the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago that was partially struck down by the Supreme Court. Critics have also said the Texas law could lead to civil rights violations and racial profiling.

Supporters have rejected those concerns, saying arresting officers must have probable cause, which could include witnessing the illegal entry or seeing it on video. They also say that they expect the law would be used mostly in border counties, though it would apply statewide.
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