With Donald Trump becoming the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports on the international reaction to his indictment and what it means for the credibility of the U.S. legal and political system
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«На місці працюють поліцейські Київської області, патрульна поліція, рятувальники та медики»
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Літак залетів у повітряний простір над Чорним морем
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Beijing is sending conflicting signals to foreign companies by telling those offshore that the country is reopening while arresting employees of foreign companies already operating in China, experts say.
The contradictory messages suggest China is trying to recover economically from three years of COVID-19-related isolation while still exerting control over the business sector. China’s economy grew 3% in 2022, according to official figures, short of Beijing’s 5.5% target. In the decade before the pandemic, China’s economy grew an average 7.7% a year.
“Part of this is because Chinese leaders likely perceive that China’s economy needs a major rebound in investment and consumption,” said Gerard DiPippo, a senior fellow with the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an email to VOA Mandarin this week.
“And they really need the private sector to lead that because localities’ fiscal resources are too constrained for another round of state-led stimulus.”
China’s new premier, Li Qiang, said Thursday that China’s economic recovery gained steam in March as he tried to reassure foreign companies that the country is committed to opening to the world.
“No matter how the world situation may evolve, we will stay committed to reform, opening up and innovation-driven development,” Li said. “We welcome countries around the world to share in the opportunities and benefits that come with China’s development.”
His message came days after Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met executives from 11 multinational corporations including Apple, Nestle and BMW.
The state-affiliated Global Times reported on the meetings on Monday, saying they had “sent a clear signal on China’s unswerving commitment to opening-up, and is testimony to China’s increasing role as a magnet for foreign investors.”
The news outlet compared the “concrete welcoming gesture” to the actions of Washington, “which has spared no effort to suppress Chinese companies in the U.S.”
Members of the U.S. Congress had grilled the CEO of the embattled Chinese-owned app TikTok days earlier.
Although Beijing began sending business-positive signals early in March, China’s draconian “zero-COVID” policy over the past three years had made the huge Chinese market less alluring than it had been for foreign companies, especially start-ups and small businesses.
According to the EU SME Centre, inquiries from small and medium-sized companies interested in entering China fell about 18% last year.
A survey released by the American Chamber of Commerce in China earlier this month shows that for the first time in 25 years, U.S. companies no longer regard China as the primary investment destination it once was.
Last week, Chinese authorities closed the Beijing office of Mintz Group, a U.S. due diligence firm, and detained five Chinese employees on suspicion of illegal business operations. [[ ]] An employee at Japan’s Astellas Pharma was also detained on suspicion of espionage.
On March 17, the Chinese Ministry of Finance imposed a three-month suspension of business on professional services firm Deloitte’s Beijing branch with a fine of $31 million.
Anna Tucker Ashton, director of China corporate affairs at the Eurasia Group, a political risk management company, told VOA Mandarin via email Wednesday, “China’s central government has spent the past few months emphasizing to the foreign business community that it is welcome in China and trying to assuage international business concerns about the operating environment. These high-profile arrests of employees of foreign companies come at an odd time.”
Ashton said the detention of employees of the American and Japanese companies raised concerns about whether geopolitical factors were involved.
“There has been some attention paid to the fact that the Mintz Group is an American due diligence firm. It helps businesses ensure they are in compliance with applicable laws, which undoubtedly include US laws that China’s government views as discriminatory. US companies operating in China have faced growing challenges navigating political and legal contradictions at home and in China, and due diligence firms are on the front lines of some of those conflicts,” she said.
“Japan is a close ally of the U.S. and relations between China and Japan are strained, so the arrest of the Astellas employee has also prompted questions as to whether geopolitics has anything to do with the situation,” she added.
Ashton said that while these incidents on their own may not prove consequential, if they turn out to be part of a bigger trend and more employees of foreign company employees are arrested, businesses may be spooked and stay away.
“Likewise, if Chinese authorities continue to withhold details on the reasons for these recent arrests, that too may have a chilling effect,” she added.
DiPippo said foreign investors and companies were already wary of possible arbitrary regulatory or legal decisions by Chinese authorities, especially with the ups and downs in China’s COVID-19 prevention policies last year.
He added that for China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, economic development is important, but it has taken a back seat to national security and long-term strategy. In a speech earlier this month Xi said, “Security is the foundation of development, and stability is the premise of prosperity.”
For many foreign investors, this means that their needs will be put on the back burner, according to DiPippo, because Xi’s top priority is to speed up indigenous technological self-sufficiency while lowering risks for the financial sector.
“One’s outlook for the business environment is downstream of one’s expectations for China’s broader political trajectory and geopolitical risks,” DiPippo said. “Unfortunately, I do not see many reasons for optimism for the latter.
“Thus, I would expect the environment in China to become increasingly suspicious of foreign — especially American — investors except insofar as those firms are making priority investments or possess valuable technology.”
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«Росіяни обстріляли центральну частину міста сьогодні вранці»
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Обмеження діяли на Київщині, Житомирщині, Харківщині
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«По прибуттю рятувальники встановили, що пожежа виникла в квартирі на останньому поверсі п’ятиповерхового будинку та необхідна евакуація мешканців будинку»
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«З’явився додатковий сервіс: електронний рецепт» – очільник МОЗ
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to be formally arrested and arraigned Tuesday, the first time a former occupant of the White House has faced criminal charges.
In a move without precedent in U.S. history, a grand jury in New York voted Thursday to indict Trump on charges related to paying off a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The highly anticipated charges come as Trump seeks a return to the White House after losing a reelection bid in 2020, making him both the only president, current or former, as well as the only presidential candidate, to be indicted.
The indictment remains under seal, and it is not clear what crimes or how many criminal counts Trump has been charged with. CNN reported that the former president has been charged with more than 30 counts. VOA could not confirm the report.
In a statement, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said it has contacted Trump’s attorney “to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment.”
To turn himself in, Trump, who lives in Florida, would have to travel to New York, along with his Secret Service detail.
Once in custody, he would be fingerprinted and photographed before being arraigned before a judge and released on his personal recognizance.
Several news outlets, citing unnamed sources, said Trump plans to fly to New York on Monday and spend the night at Trump Tower before appearing in court Tuesday.
On Friday, officials from the Secret Service and the New York Police Department toured the courthouse where Trump is set to be arraigned and discussed security plans.
Susan Necheles, a Trump attorney, told Reuters the former president will plead not guilty.
“I am not afraid of what’s to come,” Trump said in a fundraising email on Friday.
Trump’s campaign has used the indictment in its fundraising efforts and said it raised more than $4 million in the first 24 hours after the indictment was announced.
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump criticized the judge expected to oversee his case, Justice Juan Merchan. He wrote Friday the judge “HATES ME” and treated the Trump Organization “VICIOUSLY” during last year’s trial in which the company was convicted of tax fraud.
In a statement Thursday, Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing in the case, cast the indictment as part of a long-running Democratic-led witch hunt to destroy his “Make America Great Again” movement.
“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” the former president wrote. “The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable — indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant election interference.”
Rather than hurt his candidacy, Trump said the indictment “will backfire massively on [President] Joe Biden.”
Last week, writing on his social media platform, Trump warned of “potential death and destruction” if he were indicted, a statement some critics viewed as an incitement to violence.
The indictment, though widely expected, set off a firestorm around Washington.
“Outrageous,” tweeted Republican congressman and staunch Trump loyalist Jim Jordan.
Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, accusing Bragg of weaponizing the justice system against Trump, vowed that the House would hold the prosecutor and “his unprecedented abuse of power to account.”
Other Republicans who are not particularly close to Trump similarly viewed the prosecution as politically motivated.
The reaction from Democrats, on the other hand, was predictably favorable.
In a statement, former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wrote that the grand jury “has acted upon the facts and the law.”
“No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence,” she wrote. “Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”
President Biden declined to comment on the matter Friday, telling reporters, “I’m not going to talk about Trump’s indictment.”
The indictment grew out of a federal investigation of hush money payments that Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
The secret payment came to light in early 2018. Flipping on his former boss, Cohen testified in August 2018 that at Trump’s direction, he paid Daniels $130,000 to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with the real estate mogul-turned Republican candidate. The Trump Organization later reimbursed Cohen for “legal” services.
While paying hush money is not illegal, federal prosecutors charged that classifying the payment as a “legal” fee violated federal campaign finance laws.
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple federal criminal charges, including campaign finance violations, and later served more than a year in prison.
While federal prosecutors did not charge Trump at the time, the Manhattan district attorney’s office subsequently picked up the case and began receiving grand jury testimony in January.
Cohen, the prosecutors’ star witness, testified before the panel multiple times.
In a statement issued Thursday, Cohen said he stood by his testimony and the evidence he has provided prosecutors.
While the indictment remains under seal, legal experts say the charges against Trump likely center on New York’s false business records law.
Under the law, falsifying business records is normally a misdemeanor. When it is done with the intent to commit or hide a second crime, it rises to the level of a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.
What additional offenses, if any, Trump has been charged with remains unclear.
Although prosecutors typically bring charges against a defendant only when they believe they can get a conviction, convicting Trump is far from certain, according to legal experts.
While Trump has admitted to reimbursing Cohen for the hush money payment, he has said it “had nothing to do with the campaign.”
His lawyers have placed the responsibility on Cohen.
“The payments were made to a lawyer, not to Stormy Daniels,” Joseph Tacopina, one of Trump’s lawyers, said on MSNBC recently. “The payments were made to Donald Trump’s lawyer, which would be considered legal fees,” he said.
Cohen was “his lawyer at the time and advised him that this was the proper way to do this, to protect himself and his family from embarrassment. It’s as simple as that,” Tacopina said.
But other legal experts argue that prosecutors should be guided by a long-standing principle: treating like cases alike.
In a recent piece on the website Just Security, co-editor-in-chief and New York University law professor Ryan Goodman highlighted cases that he said show how prosecutors in New York “have thrown the book at individuals for falsifying business records — some cases involving actions far less egregious than Trump’s alleged conduct.”
In 2021, a mental health therapy aide was indicted under the statute for defrauding more than $35,000 in workers’ compensation benefits.
Last year, an insurance broker was indicted for allegedly creating and filing fraudulent certificates of liability insurance to further scheme to defraud.
The hush money indictment is not the only criminal case the former president faces.
In Georgia, prosecutors are considering bringing criminal charges in connection with Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in the state. Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, U.S. Justice Department-appointed special counsel Jack Smith has been investigating Trump’s role in trying to upend Biden’s victory as well as his handling of classified documents after he left office.
While in office, Trump was twice impeached, but not convicted.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The International Monetary Fund has approved a $15.6 billion support package for Ukraine to assist with the conflict-hit country’s economic recovery, the fund said in a statement Friday.
Russia’s invasion has devastated Ukraine’s economy, causing activity to contract by about 30% last year, destroying much of its capital stock and spreading poverty, according to the IMF.
The outbreak of war has rippled through the global economy, fueling global inflation through rising wheat and oil prices.
The invasion has also highlighted Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas for its energy security. Many countries were forced to seek out alternative sources of energy after the war began.
The two-step program will look to stabilize the country’s economic situation while the war continues, before turning to “more ambitious structural reforms” after the end of hostilities, IMF deputy managing director Gita Gopinath said in a statement.
The 48-month Extended Fund Facility approved by the fund’s board is worth roughly $15.6 billion.
It forms the IMF’s portion of a $115 billion overall support package comprised of debt relief, grants and loans by multilateral and bilateral institutions, the IMF’s Ukraine mission chief Gavin Gray told reporters on Friday.
“The goal of Ukraine’s new IMF-supported program is to provide an anchor for economic policies — policies that will sustain macroeconomic financial stability and support … economic recovery,” he said.
Of the total amount approved by the IMF, $2.7 billion is being made available to Ukraine immediately, with the rest of the funds due to be released over the next four years.
The program also includes additional guarantees from some IMF members in the event that active combat continues beyond its current estimate of mid-2024.
If the conflict were to extend into 2025, it would raise Ukraine’s financial needs from $115 billion to about $140 billion, Gray said.
“This program has been designed in such a way that it would work even if economic circumstances are considerably worse than … the current baseline,” he said.
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Every day, hundreds of people are taken into law enforcement custody in New York City. Former President Donald Trump will become one of them next week.
Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon after an investigation into payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter. The indictment itself remains sealed for now in the first criminal case ever brought against a former U.S. president.
Trump — a Republican who assailed the case Thursday as a Democratic prosecutor’s “political persecution” of “a completely innocent person” — is expected to turn himself in to authorities next week, according to three people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly. The people said the details of a surrender are still being worked out.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said it had contacted Trump’s lawyer to coordinate his surrender and arraignment.
For any New York defendant, poor or powerful, answering criminal charges means being fingerprinted and photographed, fielding basic questions such as name and birthdate, and getting arraigned. All told, defendants are typically detained for at least several hours.
There can be differences in where the different steps happen, how long they take, whether handcuffs come out and other particulars. A lot depends on the severity of the case and whether defendants arrange to turn themselves in.
But there is no playbook for booking an ex-president with U.S. Secret Service protection. Agents are tasked with the protection of former presidents unless and until they say they don’t need it. Trump has kept his detail, so agents would need to be by his side at all times.
“This would be a unique outlier,” said Jeremy Saland, a defense lawyer and former prosecutor in Manhattan.
When Trump turns himself in, expect a carefully choreographed and relatively quick process and release without bail (as is common in New York) — and with a focus on security. A former president isn’t likely to be paraded in cuffs across a sidewalk or through a crowded courthouse hallway, Saland predicts.
“It’s a public forum, but safety is also paramount,” he notes.
If defendants are notified of an indictment or an impending arrest, they often arrange to turn themselves in. Doing so can smooth the process and strengthen arguments for bail by showing that they aren’t evading the case.
For example, when the former finance chief of Trump’s company, Allen Weisselberg, was indicted in Manhattan on tax fraud charges in 2021, he was able to turn himself in at a courthouse side door before normal workday hours.
The aim was “to reduce the likelihood that the surrender would become a media frenzy,” his lawyers wrote in a subsequent court filing.
Weisselberg arrived around 6:15 a.m. and was taken to what his attorneys described as a “holding room” for booking, an interview about potential release, and other procedures. To pass the time, he’d brought a book — Chicken Soup for the Baseball Fan’s Soul — and his lawyers supplied him with a snack, a face mask, breath mints and other items, according to the filing.
Weisselberg was arraigned and released about eight hours later, after being walked into a courtroom past a phalanx of news cameras in the hallway. (Weisselberg eventually pleaded guilty to dodging taxes on job perks including a free apartment and school tuition for his grandchildren.)
Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, on the other hand, turned himself in at a Manhattan police station in 2018 to face rape and criminal sex act charges. He was briefly in a stationhouse cell, flipping through a biography of famed film director Elia Kazan, before being led out in handcuffs and taken to court under the gaze of journalists on the sidewalk — and other suspects in a courthouse booking area, where some hollered, “Yo, Harvey!”
Within about three hours after his surrender, Weinstein was arraigned and released on electronic monitoring and $1 million bail. (Weinstein was eventually convicted; his appeal is now before New York’s highest court. He’s also been convicted on similar charges in Los Angeles.)
But even a scheduled arrest is still an arrest. Defendants have to give up cellphones and some other personal items for safekeeping (and, in some cases, potential evidence), and lawyers generally aren’t allowed to accompany their clients through the process. Attorneys often advise traveling light and staying mum.
“Don’t make any statements. Because you think you’re helping your situation, but they can just use your statements against you — because you get caught up in the moment, you get nervous,” says Gianni Karmily, a defense lawyer who practices in New York City and on Long Island.
Many arrests in New York City aren’t preplanned. That can be a very different experience for defendants, even prominent ones.
When a hotel housekeeper accused then-International Monetary Fund chief and potential French presidential contender Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in 2011, he was pulled off a plane at Kennedy Airport.
Strauss-Kahn, who said his encounter with the woman was consensual, spent about 36 hours being questioned, arrested, undergoing various exams and waiting in such spots as a courthouse holding pen before being arraigned and jailed without bail. After several days at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail, Strauss-Kahn was allowed out on $1 million bail, under house arrest with armed guards.
Manhattan prosecutors eventually dropped the criminal case against Strauss-Kahn, who later settled a civil suit brought by his accuser.
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«Головне слово сьогодні – справедливість. Для нашої держави, для всіх наших людей, які втратили рідних, втратили здоров’я, дім, нормальне життя через російську агресію»
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Повідомляється, що люди пливли з дач, що на лівому березі Дніпра
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Тенісисти з Росії та Білорусі зможуть виступити на турнірі Вімблдон у 2023 році. Рішення про допуск спортсменів ухвалив організатор турніру – Всеанглійський клуб лаун-тенісу та крокету (AELTC).
Згідно з заявою організаторів Вімблдону, російські та білоруські тенісисти зможуть взяти участь у турнірі лише у нейтральному статусі. До змагань не буде допущено спортсменів, які отримують будь-яке державне фінансування від влади РФ чи Білорусі. Те саме стосується і тенісистів, які отримують спонсорські виплати від державних компаній цих країн. Також спортсмени не повинні підтримувати російське вторгнення в Україну.
Представники української влади вже засудили рішення організаторів Вімблдона допустити російських та білоруських спортсменів до участі у турнірі.
Міністр закордонних справ України Дмитро Кулеба назвав його «аморальним» та закликав уряд Великобританії відмовити спортсменам у візах.
«Рішення «Вімблдону» дозволити російським і білоруським гравцям змагатися є аморальним. Чи припинила Росія свою агресію або звірства? Ні, просто «Вімблдон» вирішив піти назустріч двом співучасникам злочину. Я закликаю уряд Великої Британії відмовити їхнім гравцям у візах», – написав він у твітері.
Раніше Україна заборонила своїм спортсменам брати участь у змаганнях, до яких допущені росіяни та білоруси.
У 2022 році організатори Вімблдонузаборонили виступати на турнірі російським та білоруським тенісистам через вторгнення в Україну. Організаторів Вімблдону оштрафувала за це на приблизно мільйон доларів Асоціація тенісистів-професіоналів (ATP).
Цьогорічний Вімблдон проходитиме з 3 до 16 липня.
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Санду: «Ми твердо засуджуємо агресію Росії проти України. Разом з демократичними державами ми обираємо залишатися на боці вільного світу»
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«Марка, яку ми запустили сьогодні в Ірпені, має назву «Не забудемо! Не пробачимо! Буча. Ірпінь. Гостомель» – гендиректор «Укрпошти» Смілянський
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Андрій Єрмак каже, що обстріл Оріхова здійснено з літака двома ракетами
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