ЦЕНЗОРА.NET

new york — Roughly 48 million TV viewers tuned in to watch Thursday’s U.S. presidential debate between Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump, according to preliminary Nielsen data.

The number suggests the final audience will be about one-third less than the 73 million people who watched the candidates’ first face-off in 2020, and among the three lowest-rated first presidential debates since 1976.

The relatively low number compared with past debates in recent election cycles could be indicative of low voter enthusiasm for both candidates. It does not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline.

Media experts were looking to see how a new format by host CNN would play out, and whether it would provide a template for future debates. The restrictions of that format, which included the option for CNN to mute the candidates’ microphones, imposed some discipline on the candidates and should be emulated by other networks, three media experts said.

CNN, which held the exclusive rights to present the debate, allowed candidates two minutes for each answer and one minute for rebuttals, and muted their microphones if they exceeded those limits. The studio did not have an audience, and moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper did not fact-check the candidates in real time.

CNN defended itself against the criticism from some media commentators that the absence of real-time fact-checking allowed both candidates to spread false claims.

“The role of the moderators is to present the candidates with questions that are important to American voters and to facilitate a debate, enabling candidates to make their case and challenge their opponent,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement.
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new york — The United States and its allies warned Friday that expanding military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is dangerous, illegal and a growing threat to the wider international community.

“Last week, Russian and DPRK leaders signed a ‘Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,’ paving the way for further deepening their military cooperation,” Robert Wood, U.S. deputy U.N. ambassador, told reporters, surrounded by representatives of nearly 50 like-minded countries.

“We are deeply concerned about the security implications of the advancement of this cooperation for Europe, the Korean Peninsula, the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.”

DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Wood spoke ahead of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by the United States, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea to discuss North Korea’s transfer of arms and munitions to Russia, which are helping drive the Kremlin’s war machine in Ukraine. Such transfers would violate a U.N. arms embargo on North Korea.

“Before February 2022, it was hard to imagine that the war in Ukraine would pose such a direct threat to the security of the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean Ambassador Joonkook Hwang told council members. “But now we are facing a new reality.”

He said South Korea’s national defense ministry has assessed that since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit in Russia in September, Pyongyang has shipped at least 10,000 containers to Russia that can hold a total of as many as 5 million artillery shells. His government has also determined that 122-millimeter artillery shells made in North Korea were included in the weapons Russia has used against Ukraine.

In return for the weapons, North Korea is seeking trade and military assistance from Russia, which would violate U.N. sanctions. It is also benefiting from Russia’s political protection in the Security Council.

“All these developments can bring about a shift in the global security landscape, and the potential long-term effects are dangerously uncertain,” Hwang said, adding that Seoul would “resolutely respond” to any threats to its security in a “prudent and measured” way.

U.N. sanctions experts detailed prohibited transfers of military equipment and munitions from North Korea to Russia in a report in February — which Moscow denied. Russia then used its Security Council veto to shut down the 14-year-old monitoring panel in April.

Russia’s envoy again dismissed accusations it is getting weapons from North Korea at Friday’s meeting.

“This is completely false,” Vassily Nebenzia told the council, adding that the two countries’ cooperation “is exclusively constructive and legitimate in nature.”

Nebenzia dismissed the panel of experts’ findings as controlled and directed by the West.

“The panel of experts have been following those orders given them and turning in the direction they were told to turn,” he said.

North Korea’s envoy defended Pyongyang and Moscow’s treaty, saying relations between the two countries “are completely peace-loving and defensive in nature.”

“Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to be concerned about development of their bilateral relations, unless they have intention to undertake a military invasion of the DPRK and Russian Federation,” Ambassador Song Kim said.

China, which has traditionally been North Korea’s closest ally, expressed concern about heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

“China calls on parties concerned to be rational and pragmatic and to find joint efforts to find a solution,” Deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang said.

Washington’s envoy urged Beijing to use its influence with both Pyongyang and Moscow to persuade them to cease their “increasingly dangerous cooperation.”

“So I appeal to my Chinese colleague to understand that if indeed the situation on the Korean Peninsula continues on the trajectory it’s going, the United States and its allies will have to take steps to defend their security,” Wood said.
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Через російський удар постраждали 12 людей, половина – в лікарні
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will expand deportation relief and work permits to an estimated 309,000 Haitians in the country already, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Friday.  

The administration will expand access to the Temporary Protected Status program to Haitians through February 2026 because of violence and security issues in Haiti that limits access to safety, health care, food and water, the department said. The expanded program will be available to Haitians in the U.S. on or before June 3. 

About 264,000 Haitians in the U.S. were already covered by the program, according to the U.S. government.  

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat seeking another term in the November 5 elections, has walked a political tightrope when it comes to immigration, both trying to step up security at the U.S.-Mexico border and take a more humane approach to immigrants in the U.S. illegally. 

In a presidential debate on Thursday, Biden’s Republican challenger, former president Donald Trump, criticized Biden for failing to stem high levels of illegal immigration. 

Gang wars in Haiti have displaced over half a million people and nearly 5 million are facing severe food insecurity. Armed groups, which now control most of the capital, have formed a broad alliance while carrying out widespread killings, ransom kidnappings and sexual violence.
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In Frederick, Maryland, when Tony Peterson got himself off the streets, he wanted to help others conquer their homelessness as well. He began by asking the homeless people he encountered what they needed, and the answer was simple but deeply personal. Arzouma Kompaore reports.
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Романків є автором та співавтором понад 65 патентів, зокрема й того, що стосується запису та зчитування інформації з жорстких дисків
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«Буду вживати всіх належних заходів для захисту прав людини, адже здоровий глузд та справедливість мають перемогти» заявив омбудсмен
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washington — Recent changes in global migration patterns and smuggling routes have created an opening for terror groups like the Islamic State to set their sights on the U.S. southern border.

For years, top U.S. counterterrorism officials have pushed back against critics who sounded alarms about would-be terrorists streaming across the U.S. border with Mexico. But changes within the past year have increased the likelihood of such a reality.

“What we face today is a greater vulnerability to the possibility that terrorist organizations might use that pathway to get individuals into the United States,” according to Nick Rasmussen, the counterterrorism coordinator for the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS.

“The diversity of the migrant population arriving at our borders — this is not in any way, shape or form a problem of the Western Hemisphere,” Rasmussen told a conference Thursday in Omaha, Nebraska.

“It’s a global migration problem with migrants from literally every corner of the world, including from most conflict zones around the world, showing up and arriving on our shores,” he said, describing the convergence of the migration routes with concerns about terror groups like Islamic State “relatively recent.”

Concerns about possible infiltration by migrants linked to the Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS, have spiked in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, The New York Post reported the FBI arrested eight men from Tajikistan who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border partly with the help of an IS-linked network.

And earlier this week, NBC News reported more than 400 immigrants from Central Asia crossed into the U.S., again with help from IS-linked smugglers. Of those, some 150 have been arrested, while another 50 remain at large. The officials did not comment on the status of the remaining 200.

Senior DHS officials say there is no evidence to suggest any of the 400 Central Asian migrants are IS operatives.

But officials have said the eight men from Tajikistan were arrested because of potential ties to IS. All eight are in the middle of removal hearings and face deportation.

U.S. officials have sought to allay concerns.

White House deputy homeland security adviser Jen Daskal told the counterterrorism conference in Omaha on Wednesday that there is now increased vigilance along the U.S. southern border.

“We have enhanced our screening and vetting, instituted recurrent vetting of migrants to identify newly uncovered threats and detain those who pose a public safety threat,” Daskal said. “We know that there is a continued risk posed by those inspired by these terrorist organizations, and we are acutely focused on that risk.”

Rasmussen, speaking a day later, likewise pushed back against fears of a terrorist free for all.

“Most of the last decade there have been political critics who have said that terrorists are streaming across the southern border, and we could look at that analytically as our intelligence and law enforcement really did, and say, no, that’s actually not happening,” he said. “I would argue it’s not true today, as well.”

Rasmussen agreed, though, the newfound focus by groups like IS on exploiting migration to the Western Hemisphere deserves immediate attention.

The convergence of migration patterns and terrorism is “probably highest on my worry and priority list today,” he said.
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washington — The recent defense pact between Russia and North Korea could present a diplomatic opportunity for the United States and China to work together for stability on the Korean Peninsula, an issue of mutual interest to both countries, some experts say.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Monday that China would be “somewhat anxious” about enhanced cooperation between Russia and North Korea, adding that Chinese officials have “indicated so in some of our interactions, and we can see some tension associated with those things.”

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters after the Russia-North Korea summit last week in Pyongyang that concern about the new defense agreement between the two countries “would be shared by the People’s Republic of China” — China’s official name.

During their keenly watched summit, Russian President Vladmir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, vowing to challenge the U.S.-led world order.

Under the treaty, the two countries, which share a short border along the lower Tumen River, are now required to provide military assistance using all available means if either of them is attacked by a third country.

High-precision weapons

Putin further raised the stakes in this newly cemented relationship, saying he is not ruling out the possibility of Russia providing high-precision weapons to North Korea.

According to some experts in Washington, China’s frustration with its two neighbors could make room for a Sino-American effort to dissuade Russia and North Korea from moving forward with their nascent defense pact.

Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, told VOA’s Korean Service earlier this week that there is a way for the U.S. to find “some common ground” with China on this issue.

He explained that it is in China’s interest not to see the transfer of Russia’s advanced, offensive military technologies to North Korea, which could be destabilizing on the Korean Peninsula.

“That opens up a common ground for the United States to deal with China to limit any destabilizing transfer of technology to the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

Joseph DeTrani, who served as the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006, told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday that the U.S. and China need to come together on this issue.

DeTrani said North Korea has to be on the list of “the issues of mutual concern” between the top two powers, as the U.S. pursues dialogue with China on subjects such as artificial intelligence and trade.

Dennis Wilder, who served as senior director for East Asia affairs at the White House’s National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, was more cautious about the possibility of U.S.-China coordination.

Wilder told VOA’s Korean Service this week that the current state of U.S.-China relations makes Beijing averse to working with Washington on North Korea.

“No, they have no interest in joining with us, considering how they feel we are treating them,” Wilder said. “I very much doubt that the Chinese would be interested. A far possibility would be that they might want to share information, but that would be the only place.”

No ties to call on

Robert Gallucci, who was the chief U.S. negotiator during the 1994 North Korea nuclear crisis, offered a similar view.

“We don’t have a relationship with Beijing right now that we could call on,” he said earlier this week.

Gallucci told VOA’s Korean Service that China will not appreciate the possibility of its influence on North Korea being undercut.

Gary Samore, who served as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, told VOA’s Korean Service via email on Wednesday that China might have a limited influence on what is happening between Russia and North Korea, although Washington and Beijing share an interest in keeping things calm on the Korean Peninsula.

“I expect that Beijing will discourage any military assistance from Russia to North Korea that could be destabilizing,” he said. “Whether Putin or Kim Jong Un will respect China’s wishes, I can’t say.”

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean Service via email earlier this week that “in principle, China welcomes Russia to consolidate and develop traditional friendly relations with relevant countries,” without referring to North Korea.

Meanwhile, Washington is holding out hope that Beijing can still leverage its historical ties with Pyongyang to drive a solution.

“We urge Beijing to use its influence to encourage the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] to refrain from destabilizing behavior and return to the negotiating table,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday.
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Washington — Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.

The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.

For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.

At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.

She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.

“My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. “I am afraid that I won’t be able to return after I go back [to China].”

Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.

In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.

Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.

She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.

“We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I’ve seen in quite a while,” he said.

Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.

In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.

“I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants.”

Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China’s ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.

“Beijing’s intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People’s Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they’ve learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades.”

Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.

“I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”

Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures.”

In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said “99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.

He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.

At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality” and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.

“The United States, under the pretext of ‘national security,’ unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”

Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students’ willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.

“On balance, it’s still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers,” he said.

However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.

“In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.

Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON/SEATTLE — U.S. investigators on Thursday sanctioned Boeing for revealing details of a probe into a 737 MAX mid-air blowout and said they would refer its conduct to the Justice Department, prompting the embattled planemaker to issue an apology.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Boeing had “blatantly violated” its rules by providing “non-public investigative information” and speculating about possible causes of the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines ALK.N door-plug emergency during a factory tour attended by dozens of journalists.

The decision sheds new light on strains between the crisis-hit planemaker and government agencies at a time when it is trying to avoid criminal charges being weighed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) ahead of a July 7 deadline.

“As a party to many NTSB investigations over the past decades, few entities know the rules better than Boeing,” the NTSB said.

The NTSB said Boeing would keep its status as a party to the investigation into the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines emergency but would no longer see information produced during its probe into the accident, which involved the mid-air blowout of a door plug with four missing bolts.

Unlike other parties, Boeing will now not be allowed to ask questions of other participants at a hearing on August 6-7.

“We deeply regret that some of our comments, intended to make clear our responsibility in the accident and explain the actions we are taking, overstepped the NTSB’s role as the source of investigative information,” Boeing said in a statement.

The NTSB’s criticism revolves around comments made during a media briefing about quality improvements on Tuesday at the 737 factory near Seattle – widely seen as part of an exercise to showcase greater transparency ahead of the Farnborough Airshow.

During the briefing, which was held on Tuesday under an embargo allowing contents to be published on Thursday, an executive said the plug had been opened on the assembly line without the correct paperwork to fix a quality issue with surrounding rivets, and that missing bolts were not replaced.  

The team that came in and closed the plug was not responsible for reinstalling the bolts, Elizabeth Lund, Boeing’s senior vice president of quality, added.

The NTSB said that by providing investigative information and giving an analysis of information already released, Boeing had contravened its agreement with the agency.

“Boeing offered opinions and analysis on factors it suggested were causal to the accident,” it added.

In May, the DOJ said Boeing had violated a 2021 settlement with prosecutors that shielded it from criminal charges over interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration prior to MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

U.S. prosecutors have recommended criminal charges be brought, Reuters reported on Sunday. The DOJ already has a separate criminal probe into the door-plug episode.

Thursday’s rare exchange marks the latest sign of strains between Boeing and the NTSB.  

In 2018, Boeing was widely criticized for issuing a statement appearing to question the performance of pilots in the first of two fatal crashes that led to a grounding of the MAX. Later investigations emphasized the role of flawed software.

In March this year, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told a U.S. Senate hearing Boeing had failed to provide names of employees on its 737 MAX door team for two months, drawing criticism from lawmakers. Boeing then quickly provided the names.

On Thursday, the NTSB said Boeing had portrayed its investigation of the Alaska air incident to media as a search to locate the individual responsible for plug work.

“The NTSB is instead focused on the probable cause of the accident, not placing blame on any individual or assessing liability,” the agency said.

Asked during Tuesday’s briefing who had failed to fill in documentation, Lund said: “There may have been one or more than one employee. What I will say is the ‘who’ is absolutely in the responsibility of the NTSB. That investigation is still going on and I am going to not comment on that right now”.

The role of individuals is a particularly sensitive topic in air safety amid an increasing focus on litigation and, in some countries, a trend towards criminalizing air accidents.

Under global rules, agencies carry out civil probes into air accidents for the sole purpose of finding the cause and making recommendations to improve safety in future. Such actions are separate from any judicial probes seeking to attribute blame.

Aviation experts say an 80-year-old international treaty that encourages people to speak freely and focus on causes rather than blame allowed the industry to cut the number of accidents dramatically since the start of the jet age, but depends on curbing any special pleading by the parties involved.

Critics, including some lawyers, say this system does not sufficiently take account of the need of the families of victims for detailed answers.

In 2013, the NTSB barred United Parcel ServiceUPS.N and its pilots union from an investigation of a crash in Alabama that killed two UPS pilots.  

In 2018, it removed Tesla as a party to an investigation into a fatal crash involving a vehicle’s “Autopilot” system. Tesla hit back publicly, saying it had already decided to withdraw and accusing the NTSB of violating its own rules.
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«Для цього зловмисники знімали провокативні стріми та публікували фейкові повідомлення про українських військових, а також представників ТЦК»
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