Author: PolitCens

When the U.S. Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on three companies belonging to Denis Postovoy on Wednesday, it was yet another move to break up what U.S. authorities say was an international scheme to violate sanctions.

A month earlier, on September 16, law enforcement officials arrested the 44-year-old Russian national in Sarasota, Florida.

He was charged with conspiring to violate sanctions on Russia, commit smuggling, commit money laundering and defraud the United States.

According to the indictment, Postovoy used an international network of companies to export dual-use microelectronic components from the United States to Russia –– potentially spare parts for military drones used in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

Postovoy is not the first Russian charged with violating U.S. export controls. But he is one of the few who allegedly did it from inside the United States.

Using court documents and open-source information, VOA pieced together Postovoy’s history, revealing a story involving international trade, criminal charges in two countries, a U.S. startup and Florida real estate.

Postovoy pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted, he could face decades in prison.

Postovoy is in pretrial detention and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer did not respond to a VOA request for comment. When VOA reached Postovoy’s wife by phone, she hung up. She did not respond to questions sent to her on the WhatsApp messenger app.

According to the latest court filings, Postovoy’s case was transferred to the U.S. District Court in Washington.

American charges

After Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the U.S. significantly expanded restrictions on the export of microelectronics to Russia.

The Department of Justice has accused Postovoy and several unnamed co-conspirators of using a network of companies under their control in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Russia to violate those sanctions.

It claims Postovoy misrepresented the buyers and destinations of the goods, routing them through Hong Kong, Switzerland, Turkey and Estonia.

“As alleged, he lied about the final destination for the technology he was shipping and used intermediary destinations to mask this illegal activity,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves stated in a press release. “Fortunately, our skilled law enforcement partners at HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] and our dedicated attorneys unraveled the plot.”

The prosecution states that Postovoy’s clients included the Russian company Streloi Ekommerts and other unnamed firms. According to the indictment, the contract with Streloi was completed before the company was added to the U.S. sanctions list in December 2023.

An investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty found that Streloi actively helps Russia circumvent Western export restrictions.

Another recipient of the microelectronics, according to an invoice included in the case materials, was the Russian technology company Radius Avtomatika.

Neither company responded to emailed questions from VOA.

It is unclear whether the microelectronics Postovoy allegedly exported were ultimately used in drones, but one court document states that the people he contacted were members of Russia’s military-industrial complex.

Hong Kong story

Originally from Novosibirsk, Russia, Postovoy had lived in Hong Kong since at least 2010 with his wife — a Ukrainian citizen from Crimea — and their three children.

Shipping records indicate his companies were involved in exporting goods from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, to Russia. Prosecutors allege that after the U.S. expanded its sanctions, some of this activity became illegal.

When the DOJ announced Postovoy’s arrest, it also listed the names of his companies that it said were involved in the alleged scheme. Aside from the Russian-registered firm Vektor Group, all the others were in Hong Kong: Jove HK Limited, JST Group Hong Kong and WowCube HK Limited.

All are now under U.S. sanctions, except for WowCube HK Limited.

Its appearance in the indictment provoked a rapid response from Cubios, another company previously associated with Postovoy. It produces the WOWCube gaming console, wich looks like a Rubik’s cube with multiple screens.

Just a day after Postovoy’s arrest was announced, Cubios publicly denied any connection to WowCube HK Limited.

“Neither Cubios nor any of its officers, directors, managers or employees … have any connection to the HK Entity whatsoever. We do not own, operate or are in any way affiliated with the HK Entity,” the company said in a statement on its website.

The startup also said that Postovoy “falsely listed himself as a VP of the Company” on LinkedIn.

In fact, Postovoy was previously Cubios’ vice president for production, according to archived versions of its website.

Ilya Osipov, CEO of Cubios, told VOA that a mutual friend introduced him to Postovoy.

“I was looking for someone who could help with production in China — they gave me Denis,” he wrote in a message to VOA.

According to Osipov, Postovoy became a business partner and made important contributions to prototypes and test batches of the WOWCube. Later the company decreased cooperation with him.

Although Postovoy did not have an official position, Cubios allowed him to call himself the vice president of production “for business purposes,” Osipov told VOA.

He claimed that Postovoy founded the Hong Kong firm without Cubios’ permission. It was planned to become a distributor of the consoles in Asia, but that never happened, Osipov said.

Coming to America

In 2022, Postovoy and his family moved to Sarasota, Florida, where Cubios’ headquarters is.

According to Osipov, Postovoy said the move was motivated by a desire to raise children in a Western country and concerns about increasingly strict Chinese control of Hong Kong.

American prosecutors see a different motivation.

In a response to U.S. federal investigators included in the case materials, Hong Kong police said Postovoy was charged on March 1, 2022, with money laundering — a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison and a fine of up to $643,000.

According to the email, Postovoy was scheduled to appear in court on March 4 but left Hong Kong the day before.

Hong Kong police did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

By June 2022, Postovoy’s wife purchased a house in southeastern Sarasota.

Sarasota County property records indicate the house was valued at around $980,000. A mortgage covered $680,000 of the cost.

In August 2023, Postovoy bought another house, in the new Rivo Lakes gated community in Sarasota. According to purchase documents, it cost $1.13 million. In September, he transferred it to a trust controlled by his wife.

On the same day, his wife transferred the house to another trust and later sold the property.

According to a U.S. magistrate judge, Postovoy’s decision to transfer the second house into a trust was likely an attempt to conceal his ownership.

He “did not list his home — which is valued at nearly a million dollars and held in the name of a trust controlled by his wife — on his financial affidavit submitted to this Court,” the judge wrote in a decision not to grant Postovoy bail.

This may not be the only attempted cover-up in the case: Russian company records indicate that, in December 2023, a man named Dmitry Smirnov replaced Postovoy as owner of his Vektor Group company.

VOA’s Cantonese Service contributed research to this story.
…

The United States is watching growing cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic closely and some of their recent military collaboration in the region sends “concerning signals”, the U.S. Arctic ambassador said.  

Russia and China have stepped up military cooperation in the Arctic while deepening overall ties in recent years that include China supplying Moscow with dual-use goods despite Western sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine. 

Russia and the United States are among eight countries with territory in the resource-rich Arctic. China calls itself a “near-Arctic” state and wants to create a “Polar Silk Road” in the Arctic, a new shipping route as the polar ice sheet recedes with rising temperatures.  

Michael Sfraga, the United States’ first ambassador-at-large for Arctic affairs, said the “frequency and the complexity” of recent military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing in the region sent “concerning signals”. 

“The fact that they are working together in the Arctic has our attention,” Sfraga, who was sworn in last month, told Reuters in a telephone interview from Alaska. “We are being both vigilant and diligent about this. We’re watching very closely this evolution of their activity.” 

“It raises our radar, literally and figuratively,” he added.

Sfraga cited a joint run by Russian and Chinese bomber planes off the coast of Alaska in July, and Chinese and Russian coast guard ships sailing together through the Bering Strait in October.  

He said these activities had been conducted in international waters, in line with international law, but the fact that the bombers flew off the coast of Alaska had raised concerns for U.S. security. 

“We do need to think about security, heighten our own alliances, our own mutual defences,” Sfraga said. “Alaska, the North American Arctic, is NATO’s western flank and so we need to think about the Arctic that way.” 

The activity was also a concern for U.S. allies as the Bering Strait and the Bering Sea give access to the North Pacific and South Pacific, he said. 

The Pentagon said in a report released in July that the growing alignment between Russia and China in the Arctic was “a concern”.  

China and Russia are trying to develop Arctic shipping routes as Moscow seeks to deliver more oil and gas to China amid Western sanctions. Beijing is seeking an alternative shipping route to reduce its dependence on the Strait of Malacca. 

The Arctic also holds fossil fuels and minerals beneath the land and the seabed that could become more accessible with global warming.  
…

Moorhead, Minnesota, is home to more than 3,000 Kurds, some of whom have been there since the mid-1970s. They are the town’s largest minority group and hope this election might bring them representation in local government. Dakhil Shammo of VOA’s Kurdish service went to Minnesota and met with two local candidates in this story narrated by Amy Katz.
…

The Biden administration says it is looking into Iran’s apparent recent detention of an Iranian American dual national who is the only U.S. citizen publicly reported to have been jailed by the Islamic republic since a rare U.S.-Iran prisoner swap in September 2023.

Responding to a VOA inquiry last week the State Department said in a statement that it was “aware of reports that a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen has been arrested in Iran.”

The reports refer to Reza Valizadeh, a former journalist for VOA sister network Radio Farda who had left the Persian-language network in 2022. He flew to Tehran in February to visit his family after living in the West for 14 years, according to his last post on the X platform in August.

Iran views Radio Farda and other Western-based Persian media as hostile entities because they draw attention to public dissent and protests against the nation’s authoritarian Islamist rulers.

“We are working with our Swiss partners who serve as the protecting power for the United States in Iran to gather more information about this case,” a State Department spokesperson said.

“Iran routinely imprisons U.S. citizens and other countries’ citizens unjustly for political purposes. This practice is cruel and contrary to international law,” the spokesperson added.

An informed source inside Iran told VOA’s Persian Service that Valizadeh was arrested in Iran in late September on charges of collaborating with overseas-based Persian media. The source requested anonymity due to Iran’s repeated harassment of individuals who provide comments publicly to Western media.

The Iran-based human rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) and the U.S.-based media rights group Committee to Protect Journalists reported in mid-October that Valizadeh had been held in Tehran’s Evin prison without access to a lawyer since his arrest. The reports cited two sources: one close to Valizadeh’s family, and one who previously worked with Valizadeh.

Iran’s U.N. mission in New York acknowledged receiving a VOA request for comment about Valizadeh’s case last week but provided no response.

Skylar Thompson, HRAI’s Washington-based deputy director, said in a message to VOA that the State Department “must utilize all available diplomatic channels to investigate Valizadeh’s detention and ensure his immediate, unhindered access to legal counsel.”

In his last X post in August, Valizadeh wrote that he had returned to Iran in February after having only “half-completed” a negotiation with the intelligence arm of Iran’s top military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He said he decided to return voluntarily, even without having received a prior written or verbal commitment that the IRGC would not impede his visit.

In Valizadeh’s previous X post, published in February upon arrival in Iran, he said Iranian intelligence agents had summoned and pressured his family members to persuade him to return.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has tried to persuade Iranians living abroad that they have nothing to fear by returning.

“We must assure them that if they return to Iran, we will not file a case against them. We will not harass them, and we will not prevent them from leaving,” Pezeshkian said in an August interview with state news agency ISNA.

Jason Brodsky, policy director of U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, told VOA that Valizadeh’s arrest should be a warning to Iranians with dual nationalities that Tehran’s assurances cannot be trusted.

“There have been cases over the years in which Iranians abroad will get authorization from one governmental entity in Iran to enter, and then a competing agency will scoop up this person and take him hostage,” Brodsky said.

Valizadeh was slated to go on trial before Revolutionary Court judge Abolghassem Salavati, according to sources cited by HRAI and Iranian freelance journalist Nejat Bahrami, who first reported Valizadeh’s arrest in a social media post on October 13. Salavati has been sanctioned by the U.S. government for harshly punishing Iranian citizens and dual nationals for exercising their freedoms of expression or assembly.

“It seems as though Valizadeh is wrongfully detained,” said Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian political scientist who herself was detained in Iran from 2018 to 2020 on what Western nations said were bogus security charges.

In an email to VOA, Moore-Gilbert wrote that Valizadeh’s journalism “would certainly make him a person of interest to the IRGC.”

“The fact that he has been referred to the Revolutionary Court of Salavati is also telling, as this judge is favored by the IRGC for dealing with political cases including the wrongful detention of foreign and dual nationals,” she wrote.

Granting a wrongful detention designation to a U.S. national means U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens is authorized to work with a coalition of government and private sector organizations to secure the detainee’s freedom.

Designations are granted if a review by the secretary of state concludes that the U.S. national’s case meets criteria defined in the Levinson Act of 2020.

Any of Valizadeh’s family members residing abroad or legal representatives should “immediately apply” to the U.S. secretary of state for a wrongful detention designation, Moore-Gilbert said. Valizadeh’s recent work as a journalist should make the process “relatively straightforward” in contrast to other cases, she added.

The State Department spokesperson who sent the statement to VOA said the agency “continuously monitors the circumstances surrounding the detentions of U.S. citizens overseas for indicators that the detentions may be wrongful.”

The Biden administration secured the release of five Iranian Americans whom it deemed wrongfully detained in Iran in a September 2023 deal in which five Iranians in the U.S. also won reprieves from detention and prosecution.

That deal is the only U.S.-Iran prisoner exchange of Biden’s term so far. It also involved the U.S. allowing $6 billion in Iranian funds frozen under U.S. sanctions in South Korean banks to be transferred to Qatar for Iran to use for humanitarian purchases. A U.S. Treasury Department spokesperson told U.S. media this month that the funds remain “immobilized” following Iran’s backing of the October 2023 Hamas terror attack on Israel.

“Valizadeh’s detention raises questions as to whether the Iranians are holding him hostage for an exchange involving the movement of those assets in Qatar or something even greater,” Brodsky said.

“Every time we do a deal like that, it emboldens the Iranians to take more hostages,” he added. “So we need a comprehensive strategy, working with our allies and partners, to employ common hostage-taking penalties against Iran involving sanctions and diplomatic isolation.”

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Persian service. 
…

New York City recently hosted the world’s largest Halloween parade, bringing together the city’s spookiest and most spectacular characters. Here’s Aron Ranen with the story.
Camera: Aron Ranen
…

Bird flu has infected three more people from Washington state after they were exposed to poultry that tested positive for the virus, according to health authorities in Washington and in Oregon, where the human cases were identified. 

A total of 39 people have tested positive for bird flu in the U.S. this year, including nine from Washington, as the virus has infected poultry flocks and spread to more than 400 dairy herds, federal data show. All of the cases were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals, except for one person in Missouri. 

The people from Washington cleaned facilities at an infected chicken farm after birds were culled to contain the virus, the Washington State Department of Health said in an email on Thursday. 

Officials tested workers who had symptoms, including red eyes and respiratory issues, and those with potential exposure to the birds, the department said. People with symptoms were told to isolate and given antiviral treatment, it added. 

Oregon identified the three new cases after the people traveled to the state from Washington while infected, the Oregon Health Authority said in a Thursday statement. They have since returned to Washington, where public health staff are monitoring them, according to the statement. 

There have been no infections among people living in Oregon and there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission, the Oregon Health Authority said. It said the risk for infection to the general public remains low. 

Since 2022, the virus has wiped out more than 100 million poultry birds in the nation’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak. 

H5N1 bird flu was confirmed in a pig on a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday. 
…

Roughly 6% of eligible U.S. voters this election have served in the military. A recent Pew survey finds that this election year the majority of veterans favor Republican candidate Donald Trump over Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in a 60-40 split. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has more.
…

Russia has fined Google an amount larger than the entire world’s gross domestic product over restricting Russian propaganda channels on YouTube.

Russian business newspaper RBC reported this week that legal claims brought by 17 Russian TV channels against Google in Russian courts, which have imposed compound fines on Google, had reached $20 decillion — an incomprehensible sum with 34 zeros.

By comparison, the International Monetary Fund estimates the world’s total gross domestic product to be $110 trillion. Google’s parent company Alphabet, meanwhile, has a market value of around $2 trillion.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov admitted to reporters that he “can’t even pronounce this figure right.” But he said the fine was “filled with symbolism.”

“Google should not restrict the activities of our broadcasters, and Google is doing this,” he said.

The Russian state-run outlet Tass reported this week that a Russian court had previously ordered Google to restore the blocked YouTube channels or face rising charges. The fine has grown so high because it doubles every week.

Earlier this year, Russia experienced a mass YouTube outage in August. The platform is considered one of the few remaining sites where audiences can access independent information in Russia, where Moscow blocks independent news sites and press freedom has all but disappeared.

Google did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

Some information in this report came from Reuters.
…

new york — A new U.N. report warned Thursday that conflict, climate and economic stress are driving severe hunger and in some cases famine conditions, in 22 countries and territories, with no likelihood for improvement in the next six months.

“So, you have conflict impacts, climate impacts in the same countries, as well as both the combination of the two turns into economic devastation for people,” Arif Husain, chief economist of the World Food Program, said of the main drivers of the hunger crises to reporters in a video briefing.

The situation is most severe in the Gaza Strip, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali, where millions of people are in the highest levels of food insecurity, meaning famine, risk of famine or starvation are happening.

In Gaza, U.N. food agencies have been warning about the critical situation for months. It is fueled by the nearly 13-month war between Israel and Hamas, which has made it dangerous and difficult for humanitarians to get food and other assistance to about 2 million Palestinians trapped in the crossfire.

WFP’s Husain said 91% of Gazans are at crisis levels or worse for hunger, with about 345,000 of them in faminelike conditions.

“And the report says basically that there is a risk — there’s a persistent risk — of famine for the entire Gaza Strip,” Husain said.

The situation in Sudan is even worse because the numbers of people are dramatically higher.

“Time is running out to save lives,” Rein Paulsen, director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Office of Emergencies and Resilience, told reporters of Sudan.

“People are facing total collapse of livelihoods and starvation in areas where conflict is hitting the hardest across the country, including in Darfur, in Jazira, in Khartoum and in Kordofan,” he said.

Paulsen noted that famine levels of food insecurity were reported two months ago in the Zamzam camp in North Darfur, where several hundred thousand internally displaced people are sheltering. Fighting has escalated in recent months in that region between the army and a rival paramilitary group.

“And those famine conditions are likely — highly likely — to persist unless something changes,” he said.

In the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is in the grip of a serious hunger crisis because of the rampant violence from armed gangs whose kidnappings, killings, rapes and looting have left Haitians in the capital and some outlying areas afraid to leave their homes.

Two million people do not have enough to eat, and about 6,000 of them are experiencing famine levels of food insecurity, Paulsen said.

“Immediate action is imperative to save lives, to prevent starvation, and to help vulnerable populations restore their livelihoods amidst unprecedented violence and displacement,” he added.

In Africa, Mali and South Sudan are also at the top of the list of hunger hot spots.

WFP’s Husain said about 2,500 people are at catastrophic or famine levels of hunger in Mali and another 121,000 are right behind them.

In South Sudan, affected by the war in Sudan and severe flooding, the number of people facing starvation and death was projected in the report to nearly double between April and July to 2.3 million, compared with the same period in 2023. Hunger is expected to worsen when the next lean season begins in May.

A step behind these most affected countries are those of “very high concern” for humanitarians, including Chad, Lebanon, Myanmar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Syria and Yemen.

“These are classified and categorized in this context where we have a high number of people facing particular acute food insecurity, and where we also see drivers that are expected to further intensify life-threatening conditions in the coming months,” Paulsen said.

Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia and Niger are new to the list of hunger hot spots this year, joining Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe to round out the list.

WFP’s Husain said humanitarians need both resources and safe access to assist the millions of people in need to bring the high rates of hunger and malnutrition down. 
…

In New York City, a media outlet run by immigrants for immigrants uses messaging apps to engage with communities on elections, crime and local issues. Liam Scott and Cristina Caicedo Smit have the story, narrated by Caicedo Smit. Tina Trinh contributed.
…

BERLIN — The United States’ European allies are bracing for an America that’s less interested in them no matter who wins the presidential election — and for old traumas and new problems if Donald Trump returns to the White House.

The election comes more than 2 1/2 years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in which Washington has made the single biggest contribution to Kyiv’s defense. There are question marks over whether that would continue under Trump, and how committed he would be to NATO allies in general.

A win by Vice President Kamala Harris could be expected to bring a continuation of current policy, though with Republican opposition and growing war fatigue among the U.S. public there are concerns in Europe that support would wane.

Trump’s appetite for imposing tariffs on U.S. partners also is causing worry in a Europe already struggling with sluggish economic growth. But it’s not just the possibility of a second Trump presidency that has the continent anxious about tougher times ahead.

European officials believe U.S. priorities lie elsewhere, no matter who wins. The Middle East is top of President Joe Biden’s list right now, but the long-term priority is China.

“The centrality of Europe to U.S. foreign policy is different than it was in Biden’s formative years,” said Rachel Tausendfreund, a senior research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. “And in that way, it is true that Biden is the last trans-Atlantic president.”

The U.S. will continue to pivot toward Asia, she said. “That means Europe has to step up. Europe has to become a more capable partner and also become more capable of managing its own security area.”

Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, remarked when he signed a new defense pact with NATO ally Britain that the U.S. will focus more on the Indo-Pacific region, “so it is only a question of, will they do much less in Europe because of that or only a little bit less.”

Ian Lesser, a distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels, said that “above all, Europe is looking for predictability from Washington,” and that’s in short supply in a turbulent world in which any administration will face other demands on its attention. “But the potential for disruption is clearly greater in the case of a potential Trump administration.”

“There is an assumption of essential continuity” under Harris that’s probably well-founded, he said, with many people who have shaped policy under Biden likely to remain. “It’s very much the known world, even if the strategic environment produces uncertainties of its own.”

While both the U.S. and Europe have been increasingly focused on competition with Asia, the ongoing war in Europe means “the potential costs of a shift away from European security on the American side are very much higher today than they might have been a few years ago,” Lesser said. Europe’s ability to deal with that depends on how quickly it happens, he said.

Europe’s lagging defense spending irked U.S. administrations of both parties for years, though NATO members including Germany raised their game after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. NATO forecasts that 23 of the 32 allies will meet its target of spending 2% or more of gross domestic product on defense this year, compared to only three a decade ago.

During his 2017-21 term, Trump threatened to abandon ” delinquent ” countries if they weren’t paying their “bills.” In campaigning this time, he suggested that Russia could do what it wants with them.

His bluster has undermined trust and worried countries nearest to an increasingly unpredictable Russia, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

Europeans see the war in Ukraine as an existential challenge in a way the United States eventually may not, even with some signs of war fatigue emerging in Europe itself.

If Trump wins, “there’s every indication that he has no interest in continuing to support Ukraine in this war” and will push quickly for some kind of cease-fire or peace agreement deal that Kyiv may not like and Europe may not be ready for, Tausendfreund said. “And there is also just no way that Europe can fill the military gap left if the U.S. were to withdraw support.”

“Even with a Harris administration there is a growing, changing debate — frankly, on both sides of the Atlantic — about what comes next in the war in Ukraine, what is the end game,” Lesser said.

Biden emphasized the need to stay the course in Ukraine during a brief recent visit to Berlin when he conferred with German, French and British leaders.

“We cannot let up. We must sustain our support,” Biden said. “In my view, we must keep going until Ukraine wins a just and durable peace.”

The times he has lived through have taught him that “we should never underestimate the power of democracy, never underestimate the value of alliances,” the 81-year-old Biden added.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who bestowed Germany’s highest honor on Biden for his service to trans-Atlantic relations, hopes Biden’s compatriots are listening.

“In the months to come, I hope that Europeans remember: America is indispensable for us,” he said. “And I also hope that Americans remember: Your allies are indispensable for you. We are more than just ‘other countries’ in the world —we are partners, we are friends.”

Whoever wins the White House, the coming years could be bumpy.

“Whatever the outcome next week, half of the country will go away angry,” Lesser said, noting there’s “every prospect” of divided government in Washington. “Europe is going to face a very chaotic and sometimes dysfunctional America.” 
…

The crowd-sourced fact-checking feature of Elon Musk’s X, Community Notes, is “failing to counter false” claims about the U.S. election, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said in a report Wednesday.

Out of the 283 misleading posts that CCDH has analyzed on the digital social media platform, 209 or 74% of the posts did not show accurate notes to all X users correcting false and misleading claims about the elections, the report said.

“The 209 misleading posts in our sample that did not display available Community Notes to all users have amassed 2.2 billion views,” CCDH said, urging the company to invest in safety and transparency.

X did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

X launched its “Community Notes” feature last year, which allows users to comment on posts to flag false or misleading content, in effect crowd-sourcing fact checking to users rather than a dedicated team of fact checkers.

The report comes after X lost a lawsuit brought by CCDH earlier this year that faulted it for allowing a rise in hate speech on the social media platform.

Social media platforms, including X, have been under scrutiny for years over the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, including false information about elections and vaccines.

Secretaries of state from five U.S. states urged billionaire Musk in August to fix X’s AI chatbot, saying it had spread misinformation related to the November 5 election.

Musk, who endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in July, himself has been accused of spreading misinformation. Polls show Trump is in a tight race with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
…

TEHRAN, Iran — America’s presidential election next week comes just after Iran marks the 45th anniversary of the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis — and for many, tensions between Tehran and Washington feel just as high as they did then.

Iran remains locked in the Mideast wars roiling the region, with its allies — militant groups and fighters of its self-described “Axis of Resistance” — battered as Israel presses its war in the Gaza Strip targeting Hamas and its invasion of Lebanon amid devastating attacks against Hezbollah. At the same time, Iran still appears to be assessing damage from Israel’s strikes on the Islamic Republic last Saturday in response to two Iranian ballistic missile attacks.

Iran’s currency, the rial, hovers near record lows against the dollar, battered by international sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program of enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.

In public spaces, women still openly defy Iran’s mandatory law on the headscarf, or hijab, a result of the mass demonstrations over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini that still haunts the country.

That has left a feel of fatalism among some on the streets of the capital, Tehran, as Americans cast ballots for either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. Many are split on which candidate would be better for their country — if at all.

“All U.S presidents elected after the (1979) revolution had the same views about Iran and I think that’s unlikely to change,” said Sadegh Rabbani, 65.

Harris and Trump have offer hard-line views on Iran

Both candidates have either undertaken or expressed tough stances on Iran.

In 2018, Trump unilaterally pulled America out of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, setting off years of attacks across the Middle East even before Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Trump has been briefed on Iranian plots to retaliate against him, as well over his decision to launch a 2020 drone strike that killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad.

Harris, meanwhile, vowed at the September presidential debate that she would always “give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

For its part, the Biden administration did try indirect negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program that produced no tangible results, though it did reach one prisoner swap deal that saw five Americans detained for years in Iran walk free in September 2023.

In an outdoor coffeeshop in downtown Tehran, popular among the youth, 22-year-old Zahra Rezaei said she preferred a Harris win.

“We saw Trump in the past and he just ran an anti-Iran policy,” Rezaei told The Associated Press. “It is time for a woman … I think she (Harris) will better since she is not after war.”

Ebrahim Shiri, a 28-year-old postgraduate political sciences student, agreed.

“I think Harris knows the world better,” he said. “She and (Joe) Biden convinced Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. This mean moving toward peace.”

Others believe Trump, with his promises of dealmaking, might be a better fit.

“I do not know what the American people think, but Trump is able to get a quick deal with Iran,” said Mohammad Ali Raoufi, 43, who runs a double-glazed window workshop. “The Biden administration including Harris failed to reach any (deal) with Iran over the past years when they were in power.”

Reza Ghaemi, a 31-year-old taxi driver, also suggested Trump may lessen tensions in the region since he pushed to withdraw U.S. troops from the Mideast during his term in office.

Iran’s government wants sanctions gone

Many declined to speak to the AP on camera — Iran has only state-run television and radio stations, so people are suspicious of reporters with video cameras working openly on the street. A woman walking by immediately tightened her previously loose headscarf after seeing the camera.

Those who did speak to the AP mostly expressed worries about a direct United States-Iran war — especially if Trump wins.

While saying he wants Trump to win “for my own reasons,” 53-year-old Ahmad Moradi claimed that would make a U.S.-Iran war “100%” sure to happen.

A woman who only gave her name as Mahnaz, fearing repercussions for speaking openly, suggested that Harris, as a woman, couldn’t reach any deals with Iran because “men can talk to men.”

“I think if Trump is elected, it will be much harder for our kids. Of course it doesn’t matter which one is elected, it’s already tough for us,” said Fariba Oodi.

“We the Iranian people are trapped in some political game. And our kids are paying a price for that,” she added. “But I still think if it’s Trump, it will be more difficult, especially for my son who is a student and plans to apply” to study in America.

Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, elected after a helicopter crash killed hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi in May, came to power on a promise to reach a deal to ease Western sanctions.

Iranian officials maintain that separating nuclear negotiations from Mideast wars is possible, even as the U.S. has accused Iran of meddling in the November election, which Tehran denies.

Fatemeh Mohajerani, a spokesperson for Pezeshkian’s administration, said Tehran wants to see a change in U.S. policies and a respect for the “national sovereignty of other countries.” It also wants Washington to “avoid tension-making activities as we witnessed in recent years,” she said.

Analysts, however, see a difficult road ahead for any possible U.S.-Iran talks, no matter who wins next Tuesday.

“The talks will be a war of attrition,” Ali Soufi told the pro-reform Shargh newspaper. Saeed Nourmohammadi, another analyst, suggested such talks “are unlikely to be fruitful.”

But ultimately, any decision rests with Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“You know, Khamenei has seen eight U.S. presidents” come and go, said Abbas Ghasemi, a 67-year-old retired teacher “He knows how to deal with the next one.” 
…

Naturalized immigrants will make up 1/10th of all Americans eligible to vote in 2024. What impact might they have on the election?
…

washington — President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, who dressed as a giant panda, hosted trick-or-treaters on the White House South Lawn on Wednesday for the last time.

The first lady had participated in the National Zoo’s announcement earlier this year that pandas would be returning to Washington. They arrived in the nation’s capital in mid-October and Jill Biden donned the panda suit Wednesday as a “welcoming gesture,” the White House said.

Jill Biden added an educational theme to the event and named it “Hallo-Read” to help encourage reading. She has been a teacher for 40 years. Earlier Wednesday, she read a short story about spooky pumpkins to a group of costumed children gathered on the lawn.

She and the president later ventured outside at sunset and spent about an hour handing out treats. Biden, in a suit and tie, dropped boxes of White House Hershey’s Kisses chocolates in the kids’ tote bags while the first lady handed out copies of “10 Spooky Pumpkins.”

Up to 8,000 people, including students and children tied to the military, were expected to pass through the White House gates during the day.

A large orange moon and a sign that said “Hallow-Read at the White House” decorated the south face of the executive mansion. The decorations also included cardboard representations of Willow, the family cat who is rarely seen in public, and stacks of books. Giant pumpkin decorations flanked the door.

Biden dropped his bid for reelection in July. He leaves office in January.
…

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — H5N1 bird flu had been confirmed in a pig in a backyard farm in Oregon, the first detection of the virus in swine in the country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday.

Pigs represent a particular concern for the spread of bird flu because they can become co-infected with bird and human viruses, which could swap genes to form a new, more dangerous virus that can more easily infect humans.

The USDA said there is no risk to the nation’s pork supply from the Oregon case and that the risk to the public from bird flu remains low.

Pigs were the source of the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009-2010, and have been implicated as the source of others, said Richard Webby, a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital virologist who studies flu in animals and birds for the World Health Organization.

The finding of the virus in a small farm makes the pig infection less of a concern than if it had been detected in a commercial pig farm, he said.

“I think it probably doesn’t increase the risk much, but surely, if this virus starts transmitting in pigs, that absolutely increases the risk,” he said.

The Oregon farm has been quarantined, and other animals there, including sheep and goats, are under surveillance, the USDA said.

Pigs and poultry on the farm were culled to prevent the spread of the virus and enable additional testing of the swine, the USDA said. Tests are still pending for two of the pigs, the agency said.

The swine case originated with wild birds and not from a poultry or dairy farm, a USDA spokesperson said. Wild bird migration has carried bird flu to poultry flocks and cattle herds.

The case was one factor that prompted the USDA to broaden its bird flu surveillance to include nationwide bulk milk testing, which the agency announced on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters in an interview.

“While it’s a different variation of the virus and it is tied to wild birds, it is a factor to make sure that we understand and appreciate exactly where the virus is in dairy and in bovine,” he said.

The pigs on the Oregon farm were not intended for the commercial food supply, the USDA said.

The agency said that poultry and swine on the backyard farm shared water sources, housing and equipment, which have all served as pathways for transmitting the virus between animals in other states.

The detection is a warning for pig farmers to be on the lookout for further infections, said Marie Culhane, a professor of veterinary population medicine at the University of Minnesota who has researched flu viruses in swine.

“People need to start increasing their plans to deal with it if it should happen in another herd and another herd,” Culhane said. “Pigs are just really good at picking up influenza viruses.”

This year, 36 people have tested positive for bird flu as the virus has spread to nearly 400 dairy herds. All but one of the people were farm workers who had known contact with infected animals.

Since 2022, the virus has wiped out more than 100 million poultry birds in the nation’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak.
…

WASHINGTON — Reports that billionaire Elon Musk has been talking on a consistent basis with Russian President Vladimir Putin are still reverberating among current and former U.S. officials, almost a week after news of the conversations first surfaced.

Musk, who owns electric car maker Tesla and the X social media platform, also owns SpaceX, a commercial spaceflight company that has numerous contracts with the U.S. government, doing work for the Department of Defense and U.S. space agency NASA.

Some of that work is so sensitive that the United States has given Musk high-level security clearances due to his knowledge of the programs, raising concerns among some that top secret U.S. information and capabilities could be at risk.

According to current and former U.S., European and Russian officials who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, such concerns may be warranted.

During one conversation, those officials said, Putin allegedly asked Musk not to activate Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary that provides satellite internet services, over Taiwan as a favor to China.

“I think it should be investigated,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson told the Semafor World Economy Summit on Friday, a day after The Journal published its report.

“I don’t know that that story is true,” Nelson said, adding, if it is, “I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”

Russia and Musk deny frequent calls

Musk has previously denied frequent calls with Putin. In 2022, Musk said he had spoken to the Russian leader just once, but The Journal said there have been repeated conversations since then.

Musk has not commented or responded to the Journal article on X. Russia has also denied there have been frequent conversations between Putin and Musk.

The Pentagon has so far declined to refute or confirm the allegations.

“We have seen the reporting from The Wall Street Journal but cannot corroborate the veracity of those reports,” Defense Department spokesperson Sue Gough told VOA in an email late Friday.

“[We] would refer you to Mr. Musk to speak to his private communications,” Gough said, adding that, by law, the department does not comment on the details or status of anyone’s security clearance.

“We expect everyone who has been granted a security clearance, including contractors, to follow the prescribed procedures for reporting foreign contacts,” she said.

Former U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to VOA said the reported conversations, since confirmed by other U.S. news organizations citing their own confidential sources, raise significant questions.

“There is no doubt that Russia is cultivating many possible channels of influence in the United States and other Western countries,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA officer who now teaches at Georgetown University.

“Russia would regard a wealthy and influential business mogul such as Musk as potentially a highly useful channel and thus a relationship worth nurturing,” he said.

Larry Pfeiffer, a former CIA chief of staff and former senior director of the White House Situation Room, is also wary.

“It does get the spider-sense tingling,” he told VOA.

“If the reports of Musk’s repeated conversations with Vladimir Putin are true, I would definitely have some concerns,” Pfeiffer said. “Russia under Putin will cultivate support wherever it can be bought, cajoled or coerced.

“Putin has equal opportunity security services that will take advantage of any opportunity to get foreign business leaders to influence their governments to align with Russian interests,” he said.

Concerns don’t equal wrongdoing

Former officials like Pillar and Pfeiffer, though, caution there is a difference between concerns and actual wrongdoing.

Other former officials note that even if Musk engaged in conversations that could make some in government uncomfortable, just having those conversations is not necessarily illegal.

“Americans are allowed to talk to essentially whomever they want,” said a former national security prosecutor, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity. “There’s no inherent limitation.”

And in the case of a high-profile individual who oversees companies with global reach, conversations with foreign officials could be unavoidable.

“For a businessman, there may be commercially legitimate reasons to have those communications,” the former prosecutor said. “It’s when a businessman is having those communications, perhaps for political reasons or even proto-diplomatic reasons, that it gets probably more concerning from a counterintelligence perspective.”

There also may not be any legal issues with a potential failure by someone like Musk to voluntarily disclose conversations with foreign leaders. Hiding such conversations when asked about them, however, could wade into criminal territory.

Still, given the value the U.S. gets from Musk’s companies, U.S. officials may feel like they have little recourse.

“It is one of those unfair things in life that if the government has a unique need for you, you can get away with more and still get a security clearance,” the former prosecutor said. “Someone who has unique value is going to get more accommodation.”
…