Суспільство

WASHINGTON — In his first message aimed at Washington since the U.S. presidential election, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed his unwavering determination to hold onto nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say.

At a conference with army officials last Friday, Kim vowed to bolster his country’s nuclear capabilities “without limit,” while condemning Washington for its nuclear deterrence strategies with Seoul.

“The U.S., Japan and South Korea will never get away from the responsibility as the culprits of destroying the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the region,” Kim said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. “The most important and critical task for our armed forces is preparations for a war.”

Nuclear rhetoric

Evans Revere, former acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, interpreted Kim’s remarks, which were made 10 days after the election, as a message directed to President-elect Donald Trump, whom he met with face-to-face three times from 2018 to 2019.

“Kim Jong Un is making clear to President-elect Trump that everything has changed since their previous meetings,” Revere told VOA Korean via email Tuesday. “Pyongyang has become a de facto nuclear weapons state and will not give up its treasured sword, as it once called its nuclear deterrent.”

Nuclear talks between then-President Trump and North Korea’s supreme leader collapsed during their Hanoi summit in February 2019, after Trump rejected the lifting of sanctions in exchange for Kim’s offer to dismantle one major nuclear facility. Since then, Pyongyang has not slowed the ramp-up of its nuclear capabilities.

In one of its latest moves, just five days before the U.S. election, the regime tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile called Hwasong-19 that could potentially reach most of the United States mainland.

“Having already developed a credible deterrent, complete with sophisticated medium- and long-range delivery systems, North Korea wants to be accepted, or at least acknowledged, as a nuclear power,” Revere said.

Kim is trying to remind the incoming U.S. president that “the door to denuclearization has now been firmly closed and he will be dealing with a DPRK that intends to keep its nuclear arsenal,” said Revere.

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

Joseph DeTrani, former U.S. special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea, said Kim would still want to meet with Trump, but the terms this time would be drastically different.

“I think Kim Jong Un is open to a dialogue with President-elect Trump’s administration, once it is in place,” DeTrani told VOA Korean via email Tuesday.

DeTrani said Kim would come to another potential summit with Trump “from a position of strength,” given his alliance and defense treaty with Russia. Russia and North Korea have committed to coming to the aid of the other if attacked.

Other experts cautioned, however, against reading too deeply into what Kim said.

New alliance

Sydney Seiler, former national intelligence officer for North Korea on the U.S. National Intelligence Council, said that Kim’s latest remarks provide little insight into how Kim may handle the incoming Trump administration.

“Kim Jong Un is exploring the benefits available in being an active member of the axis of upheaval: states such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran who seek to overturn the existing rules-based order and justify using force to achieve their objectives,” Seiler told VOA Korean via email Tuesday.

Seiler said that Kim has begun to enjoy benefits in his cooperation with Russia — cash, food and fuel aid, assistance with weapons of mass destruction, and conventional capabilities, and diplomatic recognition and acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status.

“Why would he reach out to Donald Trump when he has friends like Vladimir Putin?” he asked.

In June, Kim and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty, which calls for Russia and North Korea to immediately assist each other militarily if either of them is attacked by a third country. Russia and North Korea respectively ratified the treaty into law earlier this month.

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, told VOA Korean via email Tuesday that Kim does not need Trump for assistance and sanctions relief as he used to because of his new alliance with Putin.

Samore said another Trump-Kim meeting won’t be very high on Trump’s agenda.

“Trump’s top foreign policy issues will be ending the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and imposing tariffs on China,” he said. “In contrast, the Korean situation is pretty stable and quiet, and nobody thinks another Trump-Kim summit will produce big results.”

VOA Korean Service asked the U.S. State Department about Kim’s latest message toward the U.S. but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.

In a response to an inquiry made by VOA Korean earlier this month, the State Department spokesperson reiterated the U.S. commitment to protect South Korea from any North Korean nuclear attack.

“President Biden reaffirmed the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities, and that any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the ROK will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response,” the spokesperson said.
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President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general of the United States, former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, withdrew himself from consideration Thursday. As VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, Gaetz was facing a tough confirmation process due to various criminal allegations.
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Former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz is withdrawing his name from consideration as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.

“I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz wrote on social media platform X.

The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee failed Wednesday to reach agreement on whether to release findings from its nearly finished investigative report on Gaetz.

The panel’s chair, Republican Representative Michael Guest, emerged from a lengthy committee meeting, saying, “There was no agreement by the committee to release the report.” He declined further comment.

Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before he was picked by Trump to become the country’s top law enforcement official in the administration that takes office on January 20.

ABC News and The Washington Post reported that the committee had obtained documents that showed Gaetz paid two women who appeared before the committee as witnesses a total of more than $10,000 between July 2017 and late January 2019. The women, who were over the age of 18 at the time of the payments, told the panel that some of the money was for sex.

A Trump transition spokesperson defended Gaetz in a statement.

“The Justice Department received access to roughly every financial transaction Matt Gaetz ever undertook and came to the conclusion that he committed no crime. These leaks are meant to undermine the mandate from the people to reform the Justice Department,” with Gaetz at the head of the agency, the spokesperson said.

Several U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, were demanding that the report be released so they could consider the scope of Gaetz’s background as they undertook their constitutionally mandated role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees.

Hours after Trump named him as a nominee, Gaetz, 42, resigned from Congress, even though he had just been reelected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, which had been nearing a conclusion.

Gaetz was in the Capitol on Wednesday to meet with some of the senators who would have voted on his nomination.

The Senate has not voted to reject a presidential nominee for a Cabinet position since 1989, with members of both political parties giving wide deference to new presidents to fill top-level jobs with appointees of their choosing.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he met with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a sitting senator, and told them there would be “no rubber stamps, no lynch mobs” in the confirmation process.

“These allegations will be dealt with in committee, but [Gaetz] deserves a chance to confront his accusers,” Graham told reporters.

The Justice Department investigated the allegations against him but last year declined to bring any charges.

Gaetz, like other Trump nominees for top government jobs, has been a vocal supporter of the president and his Make America Great Again agenda.

Gaetz, however, angered some fellow Republican lawmakers in the House in 2023 by spearheading the effort to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday a new set of sanctions targeting Russia’s financial sector and its ability to fund its war with Ukraine, hitting Gazprombank as well as many other internationally connected financial institutions, entities and individuals.

In a statement posted to its website, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the sanctions designate Gazprombank — Russia’s largest remaining unsanctioned bank — plus more than 50 other Russian banks, more than 40 Russian securities registrars and 15 Russian finance officials.

The Treasury department said Gazprombank is a conduit for Russia to purchase military equipment for its war against Ukraine and the Russian government also uses the bank to pay its soldiers.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain have previously sanctioned Gazprombank.

The sanctions mean that all property and interests of the institutions, entities or individuals targeted by the sanctions are blocked.

In the statement, U.S. Treasury Secretary said the sanctions “will further diminish and degrade Russia’s war machine. This sweeping action will make it harder for the Kremlin to evade U.S. sanctions and fund and equip its military.”

In a statement posted to the White House website, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the new sanctions are part of a pledge made by President Joe Biden in September to provide additional assistance and actions to “help Ukraine as it continues to resist Russia’s aggression.”

The Biden administration is expected to step up assistance to Ukraine before the president leaves office. President-elect Donald Trump and leading Republicans have suggested they will reduce funding for Ukraine once Trump takes office on January 20.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump says on his Truth Social account that his pick for border czar “will be in charge of all Deportations of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” VOA’s Veronica Villafañe reports on Trump’s pick,Tom Homan. (Camera: José Pernalete)
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U.S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.

The proposed breakup floated in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice calls for sweeping punishments that would include a sale of Google’s industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine.

A sale of Chrome “will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” Justice Department lawyers argued in their filing.

Although regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android too, they asserted the judge should make it clear the company could still be required to divest its smartphone operating system if its oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.

The broad scope of the recommended penalties underscores how severely regulators operating under President Joe Biden’s administration believe Google should be punished following an August ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that branded the company as a monopolist.

The Justice Department decision-makers who will inherit the case after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year might not be as strident. The Washington, D.C., court hearings on Google’s punishment are scheduled to begin in April and Mehta is aiming to issue his final decision before Labor Day.

If Mehta embraces the government’s recommendations, Google would be forced to sell its 16-year-old Chrome browser within six months of the final ruling. But the company certainly would appeal any punishment, potentially prolonging a legal tussle that has dragged on for more than four years.

Besides seeking a Chrome spinoff and a corralling of the Android software, the Justice Department wants the judge to ban Google from forging multibillion-dollar deals to lock in its dominant search engine as the default option on Apple’s iPhone and other devices. It would also ban Google from favoring its own services, such as YouTube or its recently launched artificial intelligence platform, Gemini.

Regulators also want Google to license the search index data it collects from people’s queries to its rivals, giving them a better chance at competing with the tech giant. On the commercial side of its search engine, Google would be required to provide more transparency into how it sets the prices that advertisers pay to be listed near the top of some targeted search results.

Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, lashed out at the Justice Department for pursuing “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology.” In a blog post, Walker warned the “overly broad proposal” would threaten personal privacy while undermining Google’s early leadership in artificial intelligence, “perhaps the most important innovation of our time.”

Wary of Google’s increasing use of artificial intelligence in its search results, regulators also advised Mehta to ensure websites will be able to shield their content from Google’s AI training techniques.

The measures, if they are ordered, threaten to upend a business expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year.

“The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired,” the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations. “The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.”

It’s still possible that the Justice Department could ease off attempts to break up Google, especially if Trump takes the widely expected step of replacing Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who was appointed by Biden to oversee the agency’s antitrust division.

Although the case targeting Google was originally filed during the final months of Trump’s first term in office, Kanter oversaw the high-profile trial that culminated in Mehta’s ruling against Google. Working in tandem with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Kanter took a get-tough stance against Big Tech that triggered other attempted crackdowns on industry powerhouses such as Apple and discouraged many business deals from getting done during the past four years.

Trump recently expressed concerns that a breakup might destroy Google but didn’t elaborate on alternative penalties he might have in mind. “What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair,” Trump said last month. Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman that Trump nominated to be the next U.S. Attorney General, has previously called for the breakup of Big Tech companies.

Gaetz faces a tough confirmation hearing.

This latest filing gave Kanter and his team a final chance to spell out measures that they believe are needed to restore competition in search. It comes six weeks after Justice first floated the idea of a breakup in a preliminary outline of potential penalties.

But Kanter’s proposal is already raising questions about whether regulators seek to impose controls that extend beyond the issues covered in last year’s trial, and — by extension — Mehta’s ruling.

Banning the default search deals that Google now pays more than $26 billion annually to maintain was one of the main practices that troubled Mehta in his ruling.

It’s less clear whether the judge will embrace the Justice Department’s contention that Chrome needs to be spun out of Google and or Android should be completely walled off from its search engine.

“It is probably going a little beyond,” Syracuse University law professor Shubha Ghosh said of the Chrome breakup. “The remedies should match the harm, it should match the transgression. This does seem a little beyond that pale.”

Google rival DuckDuckGo, whose executives testified during last year’s trial, asserted the Justice Department is simply doing what needs to be done to rein in a brazen monopolist.

“Undoing Google’s overlapping and widespread illegal conduct over more than a decade requires more than contract restrictions: it requires a range of remedies to create enduring competition,” Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo’s senior vice president of public affairs, said in a statement.

Trying to break up Google harks back to a similar punishment initially imposed on Microsoft a quarter century ago following another major antitrust trial that culminated in a federal judge deciding the software maker had illegally used his Windows operating system for PCs to stifle competition.

However, an appeals court overturned an order that would have broken up Microsoft, a precedent many experts believe will make Mehta reluctant to go down a similar road with the Google case. 
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President Joe Biden’s top Mideast envoy said Wednesday he’s hopeful about negotiations with Hezbollah to bring the conflict along Israel’s northern border to an end, although fighting continues, and an end appears nowhere in sight in Gaza. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate blocked legislation Wednesday night that would have sent certain armaments to Israel – a move that opponents say will extend the war. Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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President-elect Donald Trump has nominated longtime ally Republican Representative Matt Gaetz for the nation’s top law enforcement position, attorney general of the United States. As VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, Gaetz is expected to face a tough confirmation process.
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The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee failed Wednesday to reach agreement on whether to release findings from its nearly finished investigative report on former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. 

The panel’s chair, Republican Representative Michael Guest, emerged from a lengthy committee meeting, saying, “There was no agreement by the committee to release the report.” 

He declined further comment. The other nine committee members — four Republicans and five Democrats — also did not comment immediately. 

Gaetz was accused of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before he was picked by Trump to become the country’s top law enforcement official in the new administration that takes office on January 20. 

Two news outlets, ABC News and The Washington Post, reported that the committee had obtained documents that showed Gaetz paid two women who appeared before the committee as witnesses a total of more than $10,000 between July 2017 and late January 2019. The women, who were over the age of 18 at the time of the payments, told the panel that some of the money was for sex. 

A Trump transition spokesman defended Gaetz in a statement. 

“The Justice Department received access to roughly every financial transaction Matt Gaetz ever undertook and came to the conclusion that he committed no crime. These leaks are meant to undermine the mandate from the people to reform the Justice Department,” with Gaetz at the head of the agency, the spokesman said. 

Several U.S. senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, are demanding that the report be released so they can consider the scope of Gaetz’s background as they undertake their constitutionally mandated role of confirming or rejecting a new president’s Cabinet nominees. 

Hours after Trump named him as a nominee, Gaetz, 42, resigned from Congress, even though he had just been reelected to a fifth term. His resignation ended the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, which had been nearing a conclusion. 

It remained uncertain whether the panel would divulge what conclusions lawmakers had reached. With the allegations hovering over him, Gaetz quickly became Trump’s most controversial selection for his Cabinet, although the president-elect has continued to support him and has been making calls to lawmakers to bolster his chances of confirmation. 

Gaetz was in the Capitol Wednesday to meet with some of the senators who will decide his fate. The Senate has not voted to reject a presidential nominee for a Cabinet position since 1989, with members of both political parties giving wide deference to new presidents to fill top-level jobs with appointees of their choosing. 

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he met with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance, still a sitting senator, and told them there would be “no rubber stamps, no lynch mobs” in the confirmation process. 

“These allegations will be dealt with in committee, but [Gaetz] deserves a chance to confront his accusers,” Graham told reporters. 

The Justice Department investigated the allegations against him but last year declined to bring any charges. 

Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee that will consider the Gaetz nomination asked the FBI to release the evidentiary file from its investigation. 

That material would include interviews with a woman who said she was paid to have sex with Gaetz when she was 17. Gaetz has denied the accusations. 

Representative Dean Phillips, a Democrat who previously served on the House Ethics Committee, said Gaetz’s situation — a former member of Congress nominated for one of the most powerful jobs in the U.S. government — is an argument in favor of releasing the report. 

“He’s not just gone [from the House]. He’s now been nominated for a very important position in this country, which is the chief legal officer, if you will, of the country. It would seem bizarre and incongruent with any ethical principle to not release it,” Phillips said. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who leads the narrow Republican majority in the House, has said he is opposed to the release of the as-yet unfinished report by the House Ethics Committee because Gaetz is no longer a member of Congress. But reports about wrongdoing by other former members of Congress have been released in a few instances in the past. 

Ultimately, the Senate, which Republicans will control by at least a 52-48 margin next year, will decide whether to confirm Gaetz, who has never worked at the Justice Department or served as a prosecutor at any level of government. 

But Gaetz, like other Trump nominees for top government jobs, has been a vocal supporter of the president and his Make America Great Again agenda. 

Gaetz, however, angered some fellow Republican lawmakers in the House in 2023 by spearheading the effort to oust then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who eventually was replaced by Johnson.
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Some U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine may take place after President Joe Biden’s term ends in January, Pentagon officials tell VOA, noting it will take time for certain capabilities to arrive in Ukraine.

“As you know, some equipment and some systems can get to Ukraine very quickly, and you’ve seen that happen within days or weeks. Sometimes, it does take longer … and that could be longer than weeks; that could be months,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said November 14 in response to a question from VOA.

Singh noted that under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, weapon deliveries could take years.

“The long and short of it is, is that some equipment does get to Ukraine exceptionally quickly. But then there are some that take longer,” she said.

The United States has remaining funds for two main programs supporting Ukraine’s defense — PDA, or Presidential Drawdown Authority, and USAI. The first program allows weapons to be provided from existing U.S. stockpiles, ensuring faster delivery. The second program involves purchasing weapons from industry, a process that can take longer.

As of November, the U.S. has around $9 billion left for military assistance for Ukraine, the Pentagon has reported. Of this, approximately $7 billion is available under the PDA program, including around $4 billion approved by Congress in April and an additional $2.8 billion made available after accounting adjustments by the Department of Defense. Some $2.2 billion is available through the USAI program.

On November 20, the U.S. announced an additional security assistance package for Ukraine valued at $275 million. It included munitions for rocket systems, artillery rounds and anti-tank weapons.

Pentagon officials have confirmed to VOA that the Department of Defense is committed to allocating all remaining PDA funds authorized by Congress before January 20 and additional funds made available due to recalculations. The exact total will depend on ongoing assessments of Ukraine’s defense needs and the logistics of assistance delivery.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said that some weapons deliveries to Ukraine could take time.

“Everything won’t be delivered immediately,” he told reporters during a visit to Italy in October. “Things that we’re purchasing now, for example, may wind up showing up a couple of months later.”

The secretary added that some materiel from U.S. stocks is refurbished before being delivered to Ukraine. “And again, it’s not instantaneous, it may take weeks or in some cases, a couple of months,” he said.

Austin underscored that the Pentagon has provided a plan to the Ukrainians and is confident that weapon deliveries will proceed according to the expected schedule.

If the incoming Trump administration decided to stop some remaining deliveries, they could do so. In this case, however, they would have to de-obligate aid that was previously obligated by the Biden administration, Austin said last month in Italy.

On November 12, Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder said that between the passage of the supplemental funding by Congress in April and the middle of October, the U.S. has delivered 83% of committed munitions from its stockpiles, 67% of other critical air defense commitments and 60% of artillery and close air support capabilities.

“Since the passage of the supplemental, we’ve delivered hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of armored vehicles, thousands of munitions for HIMARS and antitank weapons, dozens of artillery systems, significant air defense capabilities, including a Patriot battery, hundreds of interceptors and dozens of other systems,” Ryder said.

“And together with our allies and partners, the deliveries of the strategic air defense system we committed to providing at the NATO summit are nearly completed,” he said.
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