Коваль: Фонд держмайна отримав в управління арештовані активи Дмитра Кисельова

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Голова ФДМ також анонсував аукціони квартир російського олігарха Михайла Шелкова та співробітника російської окупаційної адміністрації Володимира Сальдо
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US top military leaders face Congress over Pentagon budget and questions on Israel, Ukraine support

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Washington — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Brown Jr. testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about the Pentagon’s $850 billion budget for 2025 as questions remained as to whether lawmakers will support current spending needs for Israel or Ukraine.

The Senate hearing was the first time lawmakers on both sides were able to question the Pentagon’s top civilian and military leadership on the administration’s Israel strategy following the country’s deadly strike on World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. It also follows continued desperate pleas by Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that if the U.S. does not help soon, Kyiv will lose the war to Russia.

In their opening statements, both Austin and Brown emphasized that their 2025 budget is still shaped with the military’s long-term strategic goal in mind — to ready forces and weapons for a potential future conflict with China. About $100 billion of this year’s request is set aside for new space, nuclear weapons and cyber warfare systems the military says it must invest in now before Beijing’s capabilities surpass it.

But the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel are challenging a deeply-divided Congress and have resulted in months of delays in getting last year’s defense budget through, which was only passed by lawmakers a few weeks ago.

Austin’s opening remarks were temporarily interrupted by protesters lifting a Palestinian flag and shouting at him to stop sending weapons to Israel. “Stop the genocide,” they said, as they lifted their hands, stained in red, in the air.

The Pentagon scraped together about $300 million in ammunition to send to Kyiv in March but cannot send more without Congress’ support, and a separate $60 billion supplemental bill that would fund those efforts has been stalled for months.

“The price of U.S. leadership is real. But it is far lower than the price of U.S. abdication,” Austin told the senators.

If Kyiv falls, it could imperil Ukraine’s Baltic NATO member neighbors and potentially drag U.S. troops into a prolonged European war. If millions die in Gaza due to starvation, it could enrage Israel’s Arab neighbors and lead to a much wider, deadlier Middle East conflict — one that could also bring harm to U.S. troops and to U.S. relations in the region for decades.

The Pentagon has urged Congress to support new assistance for Ukraine for months, to no avail, and has tried to walk a perilous line between defending its ally Israel and maintaining ties with key regional Arab partners. Israel’s actions in Gaza have been used as a rallying cry by factions of Iranian-backed militant groups, including the Houthis in Yemen and Islamic Resistance groups across Iraq and Syria, to strike at U.S. interests. Three U.S. service members have already been killed as drone and missile attacks increased against U.S. bases in the region.

Six U.S. military ships with personnel and components to build a humanitarian aid pier are also still en route to Gaza but questions remain as to how food that arrives at the pier will be safely distributed inside the devastated territory.

Lawmakers are also seeing demands at home. For months, a handful of its far-right members have kept Congress from approving additional money or weapons for Ukraine until domestic needs like curbing the crush of migrants at the southern U.S. border are addressed. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is already facing a call to oust him as speaker by Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene because Johnson is trying to work out a compromise that would move the Ukraine aid forward.

On Israel, the World Central Kitchen strike led to a shift in tone from President Joe Biden on how Israel must protect civilian life in Gaza and drove dozens of House Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to call on Biden to halt weapons transfers to Israel.

Half the population of Gaza is starving and on the brink of famine due to Israel’s tight restrictions on allowing aid trucks through.
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Appeals court rejects Trump’s latest attempt to delay April 15 hush money criminal trial

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NEW YORK — A New York appeals court judge Tuesday rejected former President Donald Trump’s latest bid to delay his hush money criminal trial while he fights a gag order. Barring further court action, the ruling clears the way for jury selection to begin next week. 

Justice Cynthia Kern’s ruling is yet another loss for Trump, who has tried repeatedly to get the trial postponed. Jury selection is set to start Monday. 

Trump’s lawyers wanted the trial delayed until a full panel of appellate court judges could hear arguments on lifting or modifying a gag order that bans him from making public statements about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the hush-money case. 

The presumptive Republican nominee’s lawyers argue the gag order is an unconstitutional curb on Trump’s free speech rights while he’s campaigning for president and fighting criminal charges. 

“The First Amendment harms arising from this gag order right now are irreparable,” Trump lawyer Emil Bove said at an emergency hearing Tuesday in the state’s mid-level appeals court. 

Bove argued that Trump shouldn’t be muzzled while critics, including his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and porn actor Stormy Daniels, routinely assail him. Both are key prosecution witnesses. 

Bove also argued that the order unconstitutionally restricts Trump’s critiques of the case — and, with them, his ability to speak to the voting public and its right to hear from him. 

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, countered that there is a “public interest in protecting the integrity of the trial.” 

“What we are talking about here is the defendant’s uncontested history of making inflammatory, denigrating” comments about people involved in the case, Wu said. “This is not a political debate. These are insults.” 

He said prosecutors already have had trouble getting some witnesses to testify “because they know what their names in the press may lead to.” Wu didn’t identify the witnesses but noted they included people who would testify about record-keeping practices. 

The gag order still affords Trump “free rein to talk about a host of issues,” noting that he can comment on Judge Juan M. Merchan and District Attorney Alvin Bragg and “raise political arguments as he sees fit.” Trump has repeatedly lambasted Bragg, a Democrat, and the judge. 

Merchan issued the gag order last month at prosecutors’ urging, then expanded it last week to prohibit comments about his own family after Trump lashed out on social media at the judge’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant, and made what the court system said were false claims about her.

Tuesday was the second of back-to-back days for Trump’s lawyers in the appeals court. Associate Justice Lizbeth González on Monday rejected their request to delay the trial while Trump seeks to move his case out of heavily Democratic Manhattan. 

Trump’s lawyers framed their gag order appeal as a lawsuit against Merchan. In New York, judges can be sued to challenge some decisions under a state law known as Article 78. 

Trump has used the tactic before, including against the judge in his recent New York civil fraud trial in an unsuccessful last-minute bid to delay that case last fall and again when that judge imposed a gag order barring trial participants from commenting publicly on court staffers. That order came after Trump smeared the judge’s principal law clerk in a social media post. 

A sole appeals judge lifted the civil trial gag order, but an appellate panel restored it two weeks later. 

Trump’s hush-money criminal case involves allegations that he falsified his company’s records to hide the nature of payments to Cohen, who helped him bury negative stories during his 2016 campaign. Cohen’s activities included paying Daniels $130,000 to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. 

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses. 

Trump has made numerous attempts to get the trial postponed. 

Last week, as Merchan swatted away various requests to delay the trial, Trump renewed his request for the judge to step aside from the case. The judge rejected a similar request last August. 

Trump’s lawyers allege the judge is biased against him and has a conflict of interest because of his daughter Loren’s work as president of Authentic Campaigns, a firm with clients that have included President Joe Biden and other Democrats. Trump’s attorneys complained the expanded gag order was shielding the Merchans “from legitimate public criticism.” 

Merchan had long resisted imposing a gag order. At Trump’s arraignment in April 2023, he admonished Trump not to make statements that could incite violence or jeopardize safety, but stopped short of muzzling him. At a subsequent hearing, Merchan noted Trump’s “special” status as a former president and current candidate and said he was “bending over backwards” to ensure Trump has every opportunity “to speak in furtherance of his candidacy.” 

Merchan became increasingly wary of Trump’s rhetoric disrupting the historic trial as it grew near. In issuing the gag order, he said his obligation to ensuring the integrity of the proceedings outweighed First Amendment concerns. 

Trump reacted on social media that the gag order was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional” and said Merchan was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals. 

Trump suggested without evidence that Merchan’s decision-making was influenced by his daughter’s professional interests and made a claim, later repudiated by court officials, that Loren Merchan had posted a social media photo showing Trump behind bars. 

After the outburst, Merchan expanded the gag order April 1 to prohibit Trump from making statements about the judge’s family or Bragg’s family. 

“They can talk about me but I can’t talk about them???” Trump reacted on his Truth Social platform.
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US envoy to UN to visit Korean border, North Korean defectors

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SEOUL, South Korea — The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations will travel to the heavily armed Korean border and meet North Korean defectors in South Korea, her office said on Monday, amid faltering U.N. efforts to ensure sanctions enforcement against the North.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s trip, set for April 14-20, came after Russia rejected the annual renewal of the multinational panel of experts, which has over the past 15 years worked on the implementation of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo criticized Moscow’s veto and China’s abstention, which experts said would undermine the sanctions enforcement, with a South Korean envoy likening it to “destroying a CCTV to avoid being caught red-handed.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s trip, which will also include a stop in Japan, was meant to advance bilateral and trilateral cooperation on the sanctions and beyond, U.S. mission to the U.N. spokesperson Nate Evans said.

Both South Korea and Japan are currently members of the Security Council.

“In both countries, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield will discuss next steps to ensure a continuation of independent and accurate reporting of the DPRK’s ongoing weapons proliferation and sanctions evasion activities,” Evans said in a statement, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In South Korea, Thomas-Greenfield will travel to the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, meet young North Korean defectors as well as students at Ewha Womans University, Evans said.

In Japan, she will also meet family members of Japanese citizens who were abducted in the early 2000s by North Korea, and visit Nagasaki, which was hit by U.S. nuclear bombing in 1945.
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Report: US must enhance critical minerals strategy in Africa

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STATE DEPARTMENT — The United States must refine its Africa policy with a focus on critical minerals, including boosting its diplomatic and commercial presence in African mining hubs, says a report from the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace, or USIP.

The group says the changes are needed to safeguard against export controls and market manipulation by geopolitical competitors.

The United States heavily relies on imports for many critical minerals for use in electric vehicle batteries and other applications such as cobalt, graphite and manganese.

“Especially concerning is that the United States is at or near 100% reliant on ‘foreign entities of concern’ — mainly the People’s Republic of China — for key critical minerals,” says the USIP report.

Despite the efforts of the Biden administration and Congress to support U.S. firms in African markets, progress remains measured, with no sign that China and Gulf State competitors are retreating. The USIP report recommends the U.S. government invests in “commercial diplomacy” in Africa.

For example, Washington should prioritize to fully realize the potential benefits of a memorandum of understanding signed with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, following the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022 to jointly develop a supply chain for electric vehicle batteries.

The DRC produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, while Zambia is the world’s sixth-largest copper producer and the second-largest cobalt producer in Africa.

The USIP report also recommends that the U.S. increase the physical presence of diplomatic and commercial officers in mining centers. Given the proximity of the Congolese city of Lubumbashi to critical minerals, and the high priority placed on the country’s Lobito Corridor, USIP suggests reopening a U.S. consulate in Lubumbashi, provided security levels are acceptable.

In the mid-1990s, the United States closed its consulate in Lubumbashi following the end of the Cold War and the redirection of interests and resources. Lubumbashi is the capital of the mineral-rich Katanga Province and the second-largest city in the DRC.

Gécamines, the Congolese state mining company, is headquartered in the city, as are other mining companies.

Other policy recommendations include prioritizing and leveraging existing U.S. Agency for International Development programs to assist Africans with rule-of-law and fiscal transparency efforts, expanding membership of the Minerals Security Partnership to include African partners, as well as assisting African nations in building technical capacity in the mining sector.

Launched in June 2022, the Minerals Security Partnership, or MSP, is a collaboration of 14 countries and the European Union to catalyze public and private investment in responsible critical minerals supply chains globally.

U.S. officials say MSP members represent more than 50% of global gross domestic product and currently run 23 projects that involve the extraction and processing of cobalt, copper, gallium, germanium, graphite, lithium, manganese, nickel and rare earth elements. 

“We need to scale up our critical mineral supply chains to deploy clean technologies more quickly, more effectively,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told an MSP forum in Leuven, Belgium, earlier this month. “The demand is rising. By 2040, demand for lithium is expected to grow by more than 40%. Graphite, cobalt, nickel demand is set to grow 20 to 25 times.”

 
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With $6.6B to Arizona hub, Biden touts big steps in US chipmaking

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Washington; Flagstaff, Arizona — President Joe Biden on Monday announced a $6.6 billion grant to Taiwan’s top chip manufacturer to produce semiconductors in the southwestern U.S. state of Arizona, which includes a third facility that will bring the foreign tech giant’s investment in the state to $65 billion.

Biden said the move aims to perk up a decades-old slump in American chip manufacturing. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which is based in the Chinese-claimed island, claims more than half of the global market share in chip manufacturing.

The new facility, Biden said, will put the U.S. on track to produce 20% of the world’s leading-edge semiconductors by 2030.

“I was determined to turn that around, and thanks to my CHIPS and Science Act — a key part of my Investing in America agenda — semiconductor manufacturing and jobs are making a comeback,” Biden said in a statement.

U.S. production of this American-born technology has fallen steeply in recent decades, said Andy Wang, dean of engineering at Northern Arizona University.

“As a nation, we used to produce 40% of microchips for the whole world,” he told VOA. “Now, we produce less than 10%.”

A single semiconductor transistor is smaller than a grain of sand. But billions of them, packed neatly together, can connect the world through a mobile phone, control sophisticated weapons of war and satellites that orbit the Earth, and someday may even drive a car.

The immense value of these tiny chips has fueled fierce competition between the U.S. and China.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has taken several steps to hamper China’s efforts to build its own chip industry. Those include export controls and new rules to prevent “foreign countries of concern” — which it said includes China, Iran, North Korea and Russia — from benefiting from funding from the CHIPS and Science Act.

While analysts are divided over whether Taiwan’s dominance of this critical industry makes it more or less vulnerable to Chinese aggression, they agree it confers the island significant global status.

“It is debatable what, if any, role Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing prowess plays in deterrence,” said David Sacks, an analyst who focuses on U.S.-China relations at the Council on Foreign Relations. “What is not debatable is how devastating an attack on Taiwan would be for the global economy.”

Biden did not mention U.S. adversaries in his statement, but he noted the impact of Monday’s announcement, saying it “represent(s) a broader story for semiconductor manufacturing that’s made in America and with the strong support of America’s leading technology firms to build the products we rely on every day.”

VOA met with engineers in the new technological hub state, who said the legislation addresses a key weakness in American chip manufacturing.

“We’ve just gotten in the cycle of the last 15 to 20 years, where innovation has slowed down,” said Todd Achilles, who teaches innovation, strategy and policy analysis at the University of California-Berkeley. “It’s all about financial results, investor payouts and stock buybacks. And we’ve lost that innovation muscle. And the CHIPS Act — pulling that together with the CHIPS Act — is the perfect opportunity to restore that.”

The White House says this new investment could create 25,000 construction and manufacturing jobs. Academics say they’re churning out workers at a rapid pace, but that still, America lacks talent.

“Our engineering college is the largest in the country, with over 33,000 enrolled students, and still we’re hearing from companies across the semiconductor industry that they’re not able to get the talent they need in time,” Zachary Holman, vice dean for research and innovation at Arizona State University, told VOA.

And as the American industry stretches to keep pace, it races a technical trend known as t: that the number of transistors in a computer chip doubles about every two years. As a result, cutting-edge chips get ever smaller as they grow in computing power.

TSMC in 2022 broke ground on a facility that makes the smallest chip currently available, coming in at 3 nanometers — that’s just wider than a strand of DNA.

Reporter Levi Stallings contributed to this report from Flagstaff, Arizona.
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