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On this edition of PCUSA, Host Kim Lewis and VOA Senior White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara speak with Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, former US Ambassador to Malta about achieving gender parity and gender equality in a COVID-19 world and how the Biden Administration can set the example.  Abercrombie-Winstanley’s assignments have included election monitoring in the Gaza Strip and an extraordinary assignment where she actively supported gender equality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She was the first woman to lead a diplomatic mission in the country.
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Mass protests and gang violence have roiled Haiti for months and many people blame the president for not doing enough to stop it. As Sandra Lemaire reports, ongoing kidnappings and jailbreaks are threatening to derail elections planned for summer.Camera: Matiado Vilme, Sandra Lemaire, Reuters, AP 
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A year ago on March 11, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. As Henry Ridgwell reports for VOA from London, European countries hoped their well-funded health systems would offer some protection, but the continent was hit hard early on and continues to face high infection rates. 
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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is suing a local media group for reporting a claim that he and his inner circle were vaccinated against COVID-19 weeks before the first doses arrived in the country.  Lawyers representing President Yoweri Museveni said they filed a case against the Daily Monitor after the independent newspaper carried a story first published by The Wall Street Journal with the title: “Members of President Yoweri Museveni’s inner circle were offered vaccines from China state-owned drug maker Sinopharm.”According to the Wall Street Journal investigation, the offer by the Chinese government was meant to promote their vaccines.  Similar offers were also reported in Peru and the Philippines.The newspaper said in Peru, nearly 500 politically connected people, including then-President Martin Vizcarra, were secretly given the vaccine, which was undergoing clinical trial.The lawsuit alleges the article published by the Monitor was intentionally reckless, malicious and published without due care.   Museveni’s lawyers said the story presented him as having engaged in the dishonest activities of influence peddling, nepotism, scheming and conspiracy. They added that the article also portrayed Museveni as having abdicated his duties and obligations to frontline workers fighting COVID-19, and other groups vulnerable to the pandemic. “That presents him in a very bad light,” said Oscar Kihika, Museveni’s head of legal affairs. “So, he’s praying for damages for defamation.” Museveni’s lawyers also attached a copy of Twitter messages in response to the article in which different social media users commented on the allegation. One Twitter user Identified as Hotim 3mmy tweeted, “What if I told you the jab also cure corruption and ensure immortality on its recipients.” Mugema Stephen responded, “Few Ugandans would take it then if it cured corruption.” Museveni attacked the Daily Monitor twice recently, saying it is one of Uganda’s problems. He described the newspaper as evil, irresponsible and needing self-discipline. Museveni denied the claims in the article and instead warned he would drive the Daily Monitor bankrupt.  “That was before we imported the vaccine,” Museveni said. “Now, Monitor must apologize. In front page. To say that I got vaccinated secretly when my people were still in danger. I only care about myself. Monitor must apologize. Big, big letters.  If they don’t, I go for you. And I have already told the lawyers, get massive money from those crooks.” Daily Monitor managing director Tony Glencross said it is an independent newspaper, free to publish what it believes its audience needs to know, and the paper is preparing a defense. “In these kind of cases, the court will order that mediation must take place,” he said. “If the mediation is not successful, then we will battle it out in court.” In their letter acknowledging receipt of the suit, the newspaper’s lawyers said that the words quoted in the suit, even if untrue, cannot pass the test of defamatory publication.  They said that any immunization against a pandemic should be sought by any right-thinking member of society and cannot therefore lower the reputation of anybody. They added that the president takes precedence over all persons and if he and those close to him are immunized first against a pandemic for the president’s own safety, there cannot be any interference of loss of reputation. The newspaper has 15 days to file a response. 
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The Biden administration is contrasting its criticisms of Iran’s poor human rights record from those made by former President Donald Trump, with a senior official saying the U.S. is trying to make its Iran critiques more credible by stressing a need to also solve rights problems at home.“President Joe Biden has made clear … that human rights are going to be a priority in Iran and in the region as a whole,” said U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley in a Wednesday interview with VOA Persian at the State Department. “And I think we have restored a more principled approach in which we push for the respect of human rights throughout the world, including, by the way, in the United States.”Prior to Malley’s interview, the Biden administration had issued eight public statements about Iran’s human rights record since taking office on Jan. 20, with the toughest being a March 9 announcement of sanctions against two interrogators of Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for allegedly violating the rights of anti-government protesters in 2019 and 2020.The Trump administration had frequently been vocal about Iran’s poor rights record during its four-year term and sanctioned multiple Iranian government-linked individuals and entities for alleged human rights abuses.In an echo of Trump’s approach, Malley told VOA the Biden administration has tried to “shine a spotlight on Iran [and] the struggle of courageous activists” such as jailed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. A U.S. official in Geneva had mentioned Sotoudeh in a March 9 statement to the U.N. Human Rights Council urging Iran to end its “systematic use of an arbitrary and unfair justice system to detain and impose sentences against human rights defenders.”In another message similar to that of the Trump administration, Malley said U.S. officials were putting a “huge emphasis” on trying to bring home Iranian American dual citizens seen as unjustly detained in or prevented from leaving Iran. He named businessman Siamak Namazi, who was arrested in October 2015; Siamak’s father and former U.N. official Baquer Namazi, who was detained in February 2016 and has been on a medical furlough from prison since 2018; and environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, who was arrested in January 2018.Malley said the U.S. also will continue to seek the return of the remains of retired FBI agent Robert “Bob” Levinson, who disappeared in Iran after being abducted in 2007 and later died in captivity according to U.S. intelligence assessments.“It is unconscionable that … the Iranian government would use the lives of individuals as pawns in a political game to try to extract benefit,” Malley said. “This is not something [where] you sign an agreement and that’s enough. What you need to do is push and make sure that there’s pressure, and make sure that the Iranian people themselves know that the United States is standing with them in that fight.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 3 MB480p | 4 MB540p | 4 MB1080p | 17 MBOriginal | 34 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioUS Envoy Talks Human RightsIn an effort to contrast his message from that of the previous administration, Malley said the U.S. views the human rights fight as one involving not just Iran but other countries.“And it’s [involving] the U.S. trying to restore its own faith with its commitments back at home, commitments on democracy, on the respect of human rights,” he said. “One of the first decisions President Biden made was to lift the travel ban on Muslims and Africans to try to restore the U.S. to a stronger position in terms of being able to argue for universal human rights everywhere.”Biden repealed the Trump travel ban on Iran and 12 other nations within hours of being sworn in. He said the visa restrictions on citizens of those nations, seven of them predominantly Muslim states in the Middle East and Africa, were inconsistent with a U.S. tradition of welcoming people of all faiths and undermined national security.Trump had said the bans were justified by concerns about foreign terrorist entry to the United States and about the ability of U.S. authorities to screen visa applicants from nations afflicted by terrorism.Malley’s human rights comments drew mixed reactions from U.S. analysts and policy advocates contacted by VOA Persian.Barbara Slavin of the Atlantic Council welcomed the U.S. envoy’s position. “The Trump administration approach was riddled with double standards, condemning Iran vociferously while ignoring or soft-peddling egregious abuses by countries ‘friendlier’ to the United States such as Saudi Arabia. I thought it was important that he admitted that the U.S. record is hardly perfect in this regard,” she said.National Iranian American Council policy director Ryan Costello said the Biden administration should not only speak out “more evenly” on human rights abuses in the Middle East and the world but also ease Trump-imposed Iran sanctions that he said, “have hurt ordinary Iranians and contributed to the securitized political environment in Iran.” Biden has offered to ease those sanctions if Iran first resumes compliance with a 2015 deal in which it promised world powers to curb nuclear activities that could be weaponized, in return for sanctions relief.Alireza Nader of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said he does not believe Biden will achieve any human rights improvements in Iran without maintaining the Trump-era sanctions that were part of the former president’s “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamist-ruled nation. “The Iranian people want the Islamic Republic gone and an easing of pressure only helps the regime,” he said.Iran International senior analyst Jason Brodsky said the newly defined U.S. human rights approach to Iran is unlikely to influence an Iranian supreme leader who has gone to great lengths to ensure the survival of Iran’s ruling system. “A U.S. universal and self-critical policy by itself won’t change that calculus, and the international community needs to understand that dynamic,” Brodsky said.This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.  
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Cost of college tuition in the United States remains at an all-time high – even higher for international students. US politicians who are examining the future of higher education after COVID-19 say tackling the cost is essential to students and universities. Jesusemen Oni has more.
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The United States and China leveled sharp rebukes Thursday of each other’s policies in the first high-level, in-person talks of the Biden administration, with deeply strained relations of the two global rivals on rare public display during the meeting’s opening session in Alaska.The United States, which quickly accused China of grandstanding and violating the meeting’s protocol, had been looking for a change in behavior from China, which had earlier this year expressed hope for a reset to sour relations.On the eve of the talks, Beijing had presaged what would be a contentious meeting, with its ambassador to Washington saying the United States was full of illusions if it thinks China will compromise.Sparring in a highly unusual extended back-and-forth in front of cameras, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan opened their meeting with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and State Councilor Wang Yi in Anchorage, fresh off Blinken’s visits to allies Japan and South Korea.White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, right, speaks as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, looks on at the opening session of U.S.-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, March 18, 2021.”We will … discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies,” Blinken said in blunt public remarks at the top of the first meeting.”Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability,” he said.Yang responded with a 15-minute speech in Chinese while the U.S. side awaited translation, lashing out about what he said was the United States’ struggling democracy and its poor treatment of minorities, and criticizing its foreign and trade policies.”The United States uses its military force and financial hegemony to carry out long-arm jurisdiction and suppress other countries,” Yang said.”It abuses so-called notions of national security to obstruct normal trade exchanges and incite some countries to attack China,” he added.”Let me say here that in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang said. ” … The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people.”ProtocolApparently taken aback by Yang’s remarks, Blinken held journalists in the room so he could respond.Sullivan said the United States did not seek conflict with China but would stand up for its principles and friends. He touted this year’s Mars rover landing success and said the United States’ promise was in its ability constantly reinvent itself.Yang Jiechi, center, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, second left, speak with U.S. counterparts at the opening session of U.S.-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska, March 18, 2021.What is typically a few minutes of opening remarks open to reporters for such high-level meetings lasted for more than an hour, and the two delegations tussled about when journalists would be ushered out of the room.Following the exchange, a senior U.S. administration official said China had immediately violated agreed-to protocol, which was two minutes of opening remarks by each of the principals.”The Chinese delegation … seems to have arrived intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics over substance,” the official told reporters in Alaska.The United States would continue with its meeting as planned, the official said, adding that “exaggerated diplomatic presentations often are aimed at a domestic audience.”Before taking office, U.S. President Joe Biden had been attacked by Republicans who feared his administration would take too soft an approach with China. But in recent weeks, top Republicans have given the president a gentle nod for revitalizing relations with U.S. allies in order to confront China, a shift from former President Donald Trump’s go-it-alone “America First” strategy.While much of Biden’s China policy is still being formulated, including how to handle the tariffs on Chinese goods implemented under Trump, his administration has so far placed a stronger emphasis on democratic values and allegations of human rights abuses by China.’Pretty tough’ conversationsThe U.S. administration has said Blinken’s Asia tour before the meeting with Chinese officials, as well as U.S. outreach to Europe, India and other partners, shows how the United States has strengthened its hand to confront China since Biden took office in January.But the two sides appear primed to agree on very little at the talks, which were expected to run into the evening in Anchorage and continue Friday.Even the status of the meeting has become a sticking point, with China insisting it is a “strategic dialogue,” recalling bilateral mechanisms of years past. The U.S. side has explicitly rejected that, calling it a one-off session.On the eve of the talks, the United States issued a flurry of actions directed at China, including a move to begin revoking Chinese telecom licenses, subpoenas to multiple Chinese information technology companies over national security concerns, and updated sanctions on China over a rollback of democracy in Hong Kong.”We’re expecting much of these conversations will be pretty, pretty tough,” a senior U.S. administration official told reporters in Alaska before the meeting began.Yang questioned Blinken on whether the sanctions were announced ahead of the meeting on purpose.”Well, I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side would follow the necessary diplomatic protocols,” he said.FILE – A protester holds a sign calling for China to release Canadian detainees Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig outside a court hearing for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, March 6, 2019.China, however, indicated this week that it was set to begin trials of two Canadians detained in December 2018 on spying charges soon after Canadian police detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecom equipment company Huawei Technologies, on a U.S. warrant.Meng awaits the results of a case that could see her extradited to the United States, but China’s foreign ministry rejected assertions that the timing of the trials was linked to the Anchorage talks.Washington has said it is willing to work with China when it is in the interests of the United States and has cited the fight against climate change and the coronavirus pandemic as examples. On Thursday, Blinken said Washington hoped to see China use its influence with North Korea to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons.Uyghurs’ demandThe largest group representing exiled Uyghurs has written to Blinken urging him to demand that Beijing close its internment camps in the Xinjiang region, where U.N. experts say that more than 1 million members of the ethnic group and other Muslim minorities have been held.Blinken had pledged to raise the issue, his State Department having upheld a Trump administration determination that Beijing was perpetrating genocide in Xinjiang, something China vehemently denies.Yang said China firmly opposed U.S. interference in its internal affairs. The United States should handle its own affairs and China its own, he said. 
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More than 650-million copies of Dr. Seuss books have sold around the world since author Theodor Seuss Geisel published his first title in the 1930s. The prolific author of books like “The Cat in the Hat” is credited with helping millions of children learn to read. But this month, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it will no longer publish six of the celebrated author’s books due to racist and insensitive imagery. VOA’s Dora Mekouar has our report. But first, a warning the story you are about to watch contains images that many may find offensive.
Camera: Griffin Harrington
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Extreme weather and slowly rising sea levels are part of the modern reality of climate change. Captain Dan Kipnis, whose family has been in South Florida for three generations, is living with this new normal. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Aleksandr Fedotov, Natalia Latukhina    
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Tokyo Olympics creative head Hiroshi Sasaki said he had resigned after making a derogatory comment about a popular female Japanese entertainer, in the latest controversy over insensitive remarks toward women to hit games organizers.Sasaki, who was the head creative director for the opening and closing ceremonies at this year’s games, said he had told a planning group through a group chat that Naomi Watanabe could play a role as an “Olympig.””There was a very inappropriate expression in my ideas and remarks,” Sasaki said in a statement issued through games organizers early Thursday. “I sincerely apologize to her and people who have felt discomfort with such contents.”Sasaki said he had told Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto late Wednesday evening that he was stepping down.Hashimoto and Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto plan to address the matter at a news conference on Thursday, organizers said.Sasaki’s resignation came swiftly after weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported his remarks on Wednesday.Last month, Yoshiro Mori stepped down from his role as president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee after causing a furor with sexist remarks when he said women talk too much.Mori, 83, a former prime minister, was replaced by athlete-turned-politician Hashimoto, who has pledged to make gender equality a top priority at the games.Sasaki was named head of the creative team in December as Olympic organizers looked to revamp plans for simplified ceremonies after the Tokyo Games were pushed back a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.The Olympics are scheduled for July 23-August 8;  the Paralympics are set for August 24-September 5.  
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A top North Korean diplomat acknowledged Thursday that the United States had recently tried to initiate contact but blasted the attempts as a “cheap trick” that would never be answered until Washington dropped hostile policies.The statement by Choe Son Hui, first vice minister of foreign affairs for North Korea, is the first formal rejection of tentative approaches by the new U.S. administration under President Joe Biden, who took office in January.It came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting South Korea alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a first overseas trip by top-level members of Biden’s administration.The attempts at contact were made by sending e-mails and telephone messages via various routes, including by a third country, Choe said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA.She called the attempts at contact a “cheap trick” for gaining time and building up public opinion.”What has been heard from the U.S. since the emergence of the new regime is only lunatic theory of ‘threat from North Korea’ and groundless rhetoric about ‘complete denuclearization,’ Choe said.The White House said earlier this month it had reached out to North Korea, but received no response, and did not elaborate.Speaking in Seoul on Wednesday, Blinken accused North Korea of committing “systemic and widespread abuses” against its own people and said the United States and its allies were committed to the denuclearization of North Korea.Blinken and Austin are due to continue meetings with South Korean leaders on Thursday, before flying to Alaska for the administration’s first talks with Chinese officials, where the North Korea standoff is expected to be discussed.Talks aimed at reducing tensions with North Korea and persuading it to give up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles have been stalled since 2019, after a series of historic summits between then-U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.Choe criticized the United States for continuing military drills, and for maintaining sanctions aimed at pressuring Pyongyang.No dialogue would be possible until the United States rolled back its hostile policy toward North Korea and both parties were able to exchange words on an equal basis, she said.
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The 2020 Census in New York City was held in March during the early days of COVID. The results were surprising and could cost the city money and congressional representation, say experts.  Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Michael Eckels     
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People in many U.S. cities struggle with homelessness, caused by unemployment and high housing prices, or issues such as mental illness and substance abuse. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, officials in California say temporary tiny homes are a part of the solution.Camera: Genia Dulot  
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are heading to South Korea Wednesday after warning China the Biden Administration will respond to Beijing’s use of coercion and aggression in the region. Blinken and Austin left Tokyo earlier in the day after holding joint “two-plus-two” talks with Japanese counterparts Toshimitsu Motegi and Nobuo Kishi aimed at reaffirming the trans-Pacific partnerships in the face of an increasingly assertive China and hostile North Korea. In a joint statement after the meeting, Blinken pledged that the Biden administration will “push back, if necessary, when China uses coercion and aggression to get its way.” In remarks before a separate meeting between he and Motegi, Blinken said that Washington and Tokyo believe in “democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” but said those values are “under threat” in the region,” whether it’s in Burma or China,” using Myanmar’s alternative name in referring to the coup in that country.US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, left, elbow bumps with Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, and Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, front, after a joint news conference, March 16, 2021.Motegi said later that he and his American counterpart are both opposed to China’s attempt to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas, where it has aggressively expanded its military presence and claimed territorial rights to much of the region.  In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters that U.S.-Japan ties should not “target or harm the interest of third parties,” urging the two sides to “contribute to solidarity and cooperation, as well as peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.” Relations between the world’s two largest economies are at a low point thanks in part to a trade war that former President Donald Trump initiated as well as rising military tensions in areas that China regards as its sphere of influence. Less than two months into his presidency, Joe Biden has signaled he is in no hurry to relieve some of the pressure that his predecessor placed on Beijing. His administration has maintained import tariffs, voiced support for Taiwan’s democratic government and condemned President Xi Jinping’s alleged human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. China’s Xinjiang region has been the center of allegations of forced labor and other human rights violations.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken boards a helicopter after arrived at the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, March 17, 2021.President Biden has yet to announce his strategy toward North Korea, but a policy review is underway. Since February, the Biden administration has attempted to contact Pyongyang through several diplomatic channels but has not received any response, according to an unnamed U.S. official who spoke with the Reuters News Agency. The silence was broken Tuesday when Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, issued a statement ahead of Blinken and Austin’s talks in Tokyo accusing the Biden administration of being eager “to spread the smell of gunpowder on our land from across the ocean.”   Kim Yo Jong also warned the new administration to “refrain from causing a stink” if it didn’t want to “lose sleep” over the next four years. 
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A just-released assessment by U.S. intelligence officials finds Russia and Iran, joined by a handful of other countries and groups, did seek to influence the outcome of the November 2020 presidential election. But the assessment also concludes that, despite repeated warnings by a number of top officials, China ultimately decided to sit it out. The declassified report, issued Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is the U.S. intelligence community’s final take on foreign meddling in the hotly contested race, in which then-presidential candidate Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump. FILE – A newspaper with a front picture of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is seen at a newsstand in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 8, 2020.Initially completed and shared with the Trump administration in a classified form in January, the unclassified version, required by law, seeks to give U.S. voters an overview of the threats and of their impact on American democracy.  While the assessment concludes no adversary managed to infiltrate critical systems or change how votes were cast, the conclusions on China could lead to new questions about how the intelligence was initially presented to the public. “We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election,” the newly released ODNI report said, adding it had “high confidence” in its finding. “China sought stability in its relationship with the United States, did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk getting caught meddling, and assessed its traditional influence tools — primarily targeted economic measures and lobbying — would be sufficient to meet its goal of shaping U.S. China policy regardless of the winner,” the report stated. Earlier warnings Those findings contrast with earlier warnings from intelligence officials who spent months warning voters of the potential threats, specifically calling out efforts by China along with Russia and Iran. “China is expanding its influence efforts to shape the policy environment in the United States, pressure political figures it views as opposed to China’s interests, and counter criticism of China,” then National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director FILE – Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe waits on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Dec. 12, 2020.In August, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe grouped China with Russia and Iran in an interview with Fox Business News. “I don’t want to say this is only about China,” Ratcliffe said at the time. “China, Russia, Iran, other actors, are all trying to interfere or influence our elections for their own gain.” He added, however, that Beijing’s efforts stood apart. “China’s using a massive and sophisticated influence campaign that dwarfs anything that any other country is doing,” Ratcliffe said.  Another top Trump official, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, echoed those thoughts less than a month later. “The intelligence community has made very clear, first you have China, which has the most massive program to influence the United States politically,” O’Brien told reporters at the time. White House Defends Trump’s Concerns About Mail-In Voting National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien defended the president’s warning of fraud while dismissing an intel bulletin that suggested Russia is using mail-in voting to sow confusion ahead of the November electionTrump, himself, also played up the notion China was seeking his defeat. “China would love us to have an election where Donald Trump lost to sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump said during a news conference last August. “They would own our country.” Declassified report In the newly declassified report, however, U.S. intelligence officials concluded Beijing did not use its well-developed influence machine to alter the results. “We did not identify China attempting to interfere with election infrastructure or provide funding to any candidates or parties,” the report said. It said Beijing had previously sought to influence U.S. politics, including in the 2018 U.S. elections. “We did not, however, see these capabilities deployed for the purpose of shaping the electoral outcome,” the report said. Report Puts Russia, China and Iran in Line for Sanctions for Election Meddling

        Voters who went to the polls last month in the United States' midterm elections can rest assured that their votes were registered and counted properly.However, a new report by the U.S. 

While stating it had high confidence in its findings regarding China, the ODNI report admitted there was some disagreement. “The National Intelligence Officer [NIO] for Cyber assesses that China took at least some steps to undermine former President Trump’s reelection chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media,” it said, explaining the NIO gave more weight to indications that Beijing preferred Biden, seeing him as more predictable than Trump. The NIO also argued, with moderate confidence, that evidence suggested China increased its influence operations from June to August 2020, while calibrating its effort so as to “avoid blowback.” Still, several former intelligence officials who spoke to VOA about the ODNI report said its prevailing view in regard to China was not surprising. “[Former Director of National Intelligence] John Ratcliffe had the political mission of downplaying the whole Russian influence issue, with one way of doing that being to play up the idea that Chinese influence was at least as likely and significant as anything the Russians did,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA officer who has been critical of Trump. Pillar, now with Georgetown University, said, in his view, the more notable conclusion from the ODNI report was how Russia sought to push Trump’s candidacy. FILE – Then-nominee for national intelligence director Avril Haines speaks during a confirmation hearing in Washington, Jan. 19, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Pool via AP)”Foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in a statement Tuesday.   “Addressing this ongoing challenge requires a whole-of-government approach grounded in an accurate understanding of the problem, which the Intelligence Community, through assessments such as this one, endeavors to provide,” she added. A separate report Tuesday, from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, reaffirmed earlier findings that foreign adversaries failed to impact the tallying of ballots. “We … have no evidence that any foreign government-affiliated actor prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit election results in a timely manner; altered any technical aspect of the voting process; or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information of any ballots cast during 2020 federal elections,” the report said. The second report also rejected claims made after the November 2020 U.S. election that foreign governments, including Venezuela, Cuba and China, were in any way in control of critical election infrastructure to manipulate the election’s outcome. Such claims “are not credible,” the Justice Department and DHS concluded. Some key lawmakers, though, reacted to the reports by warning it is more critical than ever for the U.S. to maintain its guard. “The problem of foreign actors trying to influence the American electorate is not going away,” Democratic Senator John Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “Given the current partisan divides in this country, [it] may find fertile ground in which to grow.” 
 
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In the latest pushback against foreign criticism of China’s human rights abuses, Beijing has endorsed a series of lawsuits against U.S.-based German researcher Adrian Zenz, whose research and conclusions have been central to claims of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.  Zenz, a senior fellow in China studies at the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian takes a question at the daily media briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020.In the regular news briefing last Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Demonstrators take part in a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Berlin on Dec. 27, 2019, to call attention to China’s mistreatment of members of the Uyghur community in western China.On social media, some China scholars and netizens expressed resentment at the lawsuits, saying China’s latest approach to fighting back against allegations of genocide in Xinjiang is “unacceptable.”    In an online article in The China Collection March 9 discussing the legal aspects of the lawsuits, Donald Clarke, a professor who specializes in Chinese law at The George Washington University Law School, said, “There is little doubt that the plaintiffs will win in China. But what can they do with their victory? Nothing, unless they can enforce it in a jurisdiction where Zenz has assets. (Note that they don’t need to do anything about Zenz the person; it’s his money to which their Chinese court victory entitles them.)” He also said, “Under the common law of enforcement of foreign judgments, as well as the statutes in almost all states, neither a treaty nor even reciprocity is required to enforce a foreign judgment. There is generally a requirement that the foreign judgment comport with due process, but the burden is on the defendant to show that it didn’t, not on the plaintiff to show that it did. In this case, presumably that would be relatively easy for Zenz to show.” Rayhan Asat, an attorney based in Washington, D.C., who is from Xinjiang,  said that with due process, U.S. courts have to provide Zenz with a proper legal process to defend himself and will not accept rulings from a court in Xinjiang, especially in such a politically influential case. “China is not ruled by law, you cannot even guarantee this due process. They will rule themselves as winners. But U.S. courts won’t recognize it,” Asat said.Clarke said Zenz does not need to be seriously concerned about the lawsuits as long as he does not go to China. Chen Jiangang, a human rights lawyer and former visiting scholar at American University Law School, told VOA, “China’s domestic verdicts are written at will by the CCP. Such sentences would be a great harm to the world if other countries would recognize and enforce the sentences. Of course, I don’t believe this is possible. Civilized countries will certainly not conform to the CCP’s rules. It will be a joke, and it is just a harassment.”    
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