COVID-19 shots banned at public health district in Idaho, likely first in US

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A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccinations to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.

Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 shots. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.

While policymakers in Texas banned health departments from promoting COVID-19 vaccines and Florida’s surgeon general bucked medical consensus to recommend against the vaccine, governmental bodies across the country haven’t blocked the vaccines outright.

“I’m not aware of anything else like this,” said Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. She said health departments have stopped offering the vaccine because of cost or low demand, but not based on “a judgment of the medical product itself.”

The six-county district along the Idaho-Oregon border includes three counties in the Boise metropolitan area. Demand for COVID-19 vaccines in the health district has declined — with 1,601 given in 2021 to 64 so far in 2024. The same is true for other vaccines: Idaho has the highest childhood vaccination exemption rate in the nation, and last year, the Southwest District Health Department rushed to contain a rare measles outbreak that sickened 10.

On Oct. 22, the health department’s board voted 4-3 in favor of the ban — despite Southwest’s medical director testifying to the vaccine’s necessity.

“Our request of the board is that we would be able to carry and offer those [vaccines], recognizing that we always have these discussions of risks and benefits,” Dr. Perry Jansen said at the meeting. “This is not a blind, everybody-gets-a-shot approach. This is a thoughtful approach.”

Opposite Jansen’s plea were more than 290 public comments, many of which called for an end to vaccine mandates or taxpayer funding of the vaccines, neither of which are happening in the district. At the meeting, many people who spoke are nationally known for making the rounds to testify against COVID-19 vaccines, including Dr. Peter McCullough, a Texas cardiologist who sells “contagion emergency kits” that include ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine — drugs that have not been approved to treat COVID-19 and can have dangerous side effects.

Board Chairman Kelly Aberasturi was familiar with many of the voices who wanted the ban, especially from earlier local protests of pandemic measures.

Aberasturi, who told The Associated Press that he’s skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines and national public health leaders, said in the meeting and in an interview with the AP that he was supportive of but “disappointed” in the board’s decision.

He said the board had overstepped the relationship between patients and their doctors — and possibly opened a door to blocking other vaccines or treatments.

Board members in favor of the decision argued people can get vaccinated elsewhere, and that providing the shots was equivalent to signing off on their safety. (Some people may be reluctant to get vaccinated or boosted because of misinformation about the shots despite evidence that they’re safe and have saved millions of lives.)

The people getting vaccinated at the health department — including people without housing, people who are homebound and those in long-term care facilities or in the immigration process — had no other options, Jansen and Aberasturi said.

“I’ve been homeless in my lifetime, so I understand how difficult it can be when you’re … trying to get by and get ahead,” Aberasturi said. “This is where we should be stepping in and helping.

“But we have some board members who have never been there, so they don’t understand what it’s like.”

State health officials have said that they “recommend that people consider the COVID-19 vaccine.” Idaho health department spokesperson AJ McWhorter declined to comment on “public health district business,” but noted that COVID-19 vaccines are still available at community health centers for people who are uninsured.

Aberasturi said he plans to ask at the next board meeting if the health department can at least be allowed to vaccinate older patients and residents of long-term care facilities, adding that the board is supposed to be caring for the “health and well-being” of the district’s residents. “But I believe the way we went about this thing is we didn’t do that due diligence.”
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Before US sanctions violations arrest, Russian businessman faced charge in Hong Kong

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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.
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Trump to visit Dearborn, Michigan, ‘capital’ of Arab America

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WASHINGTON — In the run up to the presidential election, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has increased its outreach to Arab and Muslim Americans, particularly in battleground state Michigan. But it is her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, who has made surprising gains with this group that makes up a significant portion of voters angry over President Joe Biden’s policies on the Gaza war.

On Friday, Trump is expected to visit a halal cafe in Dearborn, Michigan, a city dubbed the Arab capital of America, in a state home to almost 400,000 Arab Americans. Many of them have expressed determination to punish Harris over the Biden administration’s support for Israel.

Trump’s visit is a continuation of his outreach to the Arab and Muslim community that have borne him important endorsements from leaders of two nearby Michigan cities that, while tiny, carry symbolic importance. Bill Bazzi, the first Muslim and Arab American mayor of Dearborn Heights, and Amer Ghalib, the Yemeni American mayor of Hamtramck, the only U.S. city with an all-Muslim city council, have endorsed the Republican candidate.

“My meeting with President Trump was positive, and we hope that he can change the current situation,” Ghalib told VOA. “He said he doesn’t want wars, and he will listen to our concerns.”

Three of the six members of the Hamtramck City Council followed Ghalib’s endorsement and the rest endorsed Harris — a split that reflects the community’s polarized views of the candidates.

“Harris has answered this question many times that she is going to work with Gaza. She’s going to be fair with people of Gaza,” council member Mohammed Alsomiri told VOA. “Trump, I don’t believe him, and I don’t trust him.”

The former president has been intensively courting the group. At a rally last week in the Detroit suburb of Novi, about a half-hour drive from Dearborn, he said Muslim and Arab voters “want a stop to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East. That’s all they want.”

Trump was joined onstage by what his campaign described as “prominent leaders of Michigan’s Muslim community,” including Imam Belal Alzuhairi of the Great Mosque of Hamtramck.

“We, as Muslims, stand with President Trump because he promises peace, not war!” said Alzuhairi.

This despite Trump suggesting that he would give Israel’s military offensives against Hamas and Hezbollah more leeway, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recent call to, “Do what you have to do.” He often boasts he will end the wars in the Middle East “in 24 hours,” without explaining how.

As president, in 2017 Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims, banning individuals from six Muslim-majority countries from entering, a policy that activists say is “cruel, inhumane, and violated international law.”

The Trump campaign has not responded to VOA’s queries on outreach to the community.

Harris’ outreach

On the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, 25 Muslim leaders released an open letter telling Muslim voters that backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other options.”

The Harris campaign said it is “working hard” to engage the community. The vice president met twice with a small group of leaders in Michigan, in Detroit in August shortly after she became the Democratic nominee and in Flint in early October. She has had one other meeting since then, with Black imams and community leaders in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, another key swing state.

Afghan American Nasrina Bargzie and Egyptian American Brenda Abdelal, two lawyers spearheading Muslim and Arab outreach for the Harris campaign, have met with groups in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Minnesota, Arizona and Nevada, the Harris campaign told VOA. Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security adviser, met virtually in early October with leaders across the country, the campaign said.

But many of these meetings have been with friendlier groups, suggesting that they were not aimed at changing hearts and minds. Gordon’s meeting excluded major Muslim and Arab organizations as well as pro-Palestinian activist groups and was more of a “check the box” engagement, according to James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, who participated in the eight-person meeting.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Harris’ vice presidential pick, has had one engagement with Arab and Muslim Americans, an October virtual meeting with Engage Action, the political arm of an 18-year-old Muslim American advocacy group, which already endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in September.

Third-party candidates

While polls suggest that support among Arab American and Muslim Americans for Trump is unlikely to surpass Harris’, they also show that third-party candidates could pull a significant portion of votes away from her. In Michigan, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has been campaigning on a platform to “end the genocide.”

A poll released Friday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy organization, showed that 29.4% of American Muslims plan to vote for Harris, 29.1% for Stein, and 11.2% for Trump. Some 16.5% remain undecided.

The numbers suggest an improvement for Harris and Trump among the group. Before Biden’s withdrawal, CAIR’s poll showed Biden received 7.3% support and Trump 4.9%.

Compared to Biden, Harris has been more vocal in expressing sympathy for Palestinians and calling out Israel to “follow humanitarian law.” She has also addressed the suffering in Lebanon and announced $157 million in assistance from the administration.

At a Harris rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this week, Assad Turfe, an Arab American official from nearby Wayne County, said that Harris is a leader “who will give voice to our pain.”

But as in her various campaign events, in that rally Harris was heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters. “Hey guys, I hear you,” she said. “We all want this war to end as soon as possible.”

A candidate must secure a minimum of 270 out of 538 Electoral College votes to win. With 16 Electoral College votes, Michigan could tip the balance in what is expected to be a very close election. Biden won the state in 2020 with 154,000 votes more than Trump. In 2016, Trump won the state over Hillary Clinton by just under 11,000 votes.

The Gaza war has been a divisive issue among the community. At a Dearborn press conference announcing Arab American leaders’ endorsement for Harris last week, a group of anti-Harris Arab Americans confronted them, calling them traitors.

Ronald Stockton, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who has studied the community for decades, said he has never seen such polarization. He fears the community may be torn apart for good, regardless of who wins.

“There will be permanent scars left behind,” Stockton told VOA, “like battlefield scars that remain decades after the war ends.”

VOA’s Iram Abbasi contributed to this report.
…

US employers add 12,000 jobs last month as hurricanes, strikes reduce payrolls

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WASHINGTON — America’s employers added 12,000 jobs in October, a total that economists say was held down by the effects of strikes and hurricanes that left many workers temporarily off payrolls. The report provided a somewhat blurry view of the job market at the end of a presidential race that has pivoted heavily on voters’ feelings about the economy.

Last month’s hiring gain was down significantly from the 223,000 jobs that were added in September. But economists have estimated that hurricanes Helene and Milton, combined with strikes at Boeing and elsewhere, had the effect of pushing down net job growth by tens of thousands of jobs in October.

Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate remained at 4.1% last month. The low jobless rate suggests that the labor market is still fundamentally healthy, if not as robust as it was early this year. Combined with an inflation rate that has tumbled from its 2022 peak to near prepandemic levels, the overall economy appears to be on solid footing on the eve of Election Day.

The government did not estimate how many jobs were likely removed temporarily from payrolls last month. But economists have said they think the storms and strikes caused up to 100,000 jobs to be dropped. Reflecting the impact of the strikes, factories shed 46,000 positions in October.

Health care companies added 52,000 jobs in October, and state and local governments tacked on 39,000.

The employment report for October also revised down the government’s estimate of the job gains in August and September by a combined 112,000, indicating that the labor market wasn’t quite as robust then as initially thought.

“The big one-off shocks that struck the economy in October make it impossible to know whether the job market was changing direction in the month,’’ Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, wrote in a commentary. “But the downward revisions to job growth through September show it was cooling before these shocks struck.’’

Still, economists have noted that the United States has the strongest of the world’s most advanced economies, one that has proved surprisingly durable despite the pressure of high interest rates. This week, for example, the government estimated that the economy expanded at a healthy 2.8% annual rate last quarter, with consumer spending — the heart of the economy — helping drive growth.

Yet as voters choose between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, large numbers of Americans have said they are unhappy with the state of the economy. Despite the plummeting of inflation, many people are exasperated by high prices, which surged during the recovery from the pandemic recession and remain about 20% higher on average than they were before inflation began accelerating in early 2021.

With inflation having significantly cooled, the Fed is set to cut its benchmark interest rate next week for a second time and likely again in December. The Fed’s 11 rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 managed to help slow inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. A series of Fed rate cuts should lead, over time, to lower borrowing rates for consumers and businesses.

In the meantime, there have been signs of a slowdown in the job market. This week, the Labor Department reported that employers posted 7.4 million job openings in September. Although that is still more than employers posted on the eve of the 2020 pandemic, it amounted to the fewest openings since January 2021.

And 3.1 million Americans quit their jobs in September, the fewest in more than four years. A drop in quits tends to indicate that more workers are losing confidence in their ability to land a better job elsewhere.
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Before US sanctions violations arrest, Russian businessman faced charges in Hong Kong

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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.
…

US envoy sees some ‘concerning signals’ in Russia-China military cooperation in Arctic

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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.  
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Kurdish immigrants running for local office in Minnesota

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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.
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Exclusive: US says it is looking into case of American jailed in Iran

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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. 
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Bird flu infects 3 more people; number of human cases in US grows to 39

PolitCens Новини, Політика, Суспільство 0 Comment

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. 
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