European Union interior ministers held emergency talks Wednesday on how to respond to asylum-seekers massing on Turkey’s borders, hoping to cross into their territory. That’s after Turkey retreated last week from a deal with the EU to keep them within its borders.

There’s no chance of a repeat of the migrant crisis five years ago that saw about 1 million people seeking asylum in Europe. At least not yet. Migrants now hoping to cross into Greece and Bulgaria from Turkey number in the thousands only. Most appear to be from Afghanistan and other countries, rather than the 3.6 million Syrian refugees Turkey now hosts.

The message sounding from European Union interior ministers at Wednesday’s meeting in Brussels was solidarity among members, and in more diplomatic wording, that the EU would not be blackmailed by Turkey.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said France wanted a complete and rightful application of a 2016 deal with Turkey that saw the EU agreeing to pay about $6.7 billion in aid to Ankara for keeping Syrian refugees within its borders.

The EU is pledging more than $780 million in assistance to Greece to deal with this new migrant issue, along with beefed-up border control. Visiting Greece’s border with Turkey Tuesday with other EU officials, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Greece a shield for the rest of Europe.

“Turkey is not an enemy, and people are not just means to reach a goal. We would all do well to remember both in the days to come,” von der Leyen said.

Turkey says the Europeans have been slow to pay the aid, and the money is going to international agencies rather than to its government. This standoff is happening as Turkey has closed its own frontier to people fleeing escalating fighting in Syria’s Idlib region just across its border.

EU foreign ministers will discuss the migrant issue Thursday and Friday.

Meanwhile, critics fault the Europeans for essentially outsourcing their migrant problems to Turkey, but also to Africa. And despite the talk of unity, they say the EU is still sharply divided over migration.

Hanne Beirens, director of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute think tank, says EU members once considered the 2016 deal with Turkey a temporary measure.

“But nearly four years onward, we have not reached any EU agreement on how (unintelligible) … common European asylum system, or how we will share responsibility when it comes for newcomers who ask for asylum,” Beirens said. 

So, it seems now an old crisis is coming back to haunt Europe.

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The United States on Wednesday recognized 12 women from around the globe with International Women of Courage awards for their leadership in advocating for human rights, democracy, gender equality and women’s empowerment. One of the honorees is Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh, who exposed the existence of a Muslim detention camp in China’s Xinjiang region.  VOA’s State Department correspondent Nike Ching has the report.

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The Supreme Court is taking up the first major abortion case of the Trump era, an election year look at a Louisiana dispute that could reveal how willing the more conservative court is to roll back abortion rights.
   
The outcome could have huge consequences at a time when several states have passed laws, being challenged in the courts that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks.
   
The justices on Wednesday are examining a Louisiana law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. A federal judge found that just one of Louisiana’s three abortion clinics would remain open if the law is allowed to take effect.
   
It is similar to one in Texas that the Supreme Court struck down in 2016. Since then, though, Donald Trump was elected president and he appointed two justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who have shifted the court to the right. Even with those two additions to the court, Chief Justice John Roberts almost certainly holds the deciding vote.
   
When the justices temporarily blocked the Louisiana law from taking effect a year ago, Roberts joined the court’s four liberal justices to put it on hold. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were among the four conservatives who would have allowed the law to take effect.
   
Those preliminary votes do not bind the justices when they undertake a thorough review of an issue, but they often signal how a case will come out.
   
Roberts has generally voted to uphold abortion restrictions in more than 14 years as chief justice, including in the Texas case four years ago.
   
It is for now unclear whether Roberts’ outlook on the Louisiana case has been affected by his new role as the court’s swing justice since Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, his concern about the court being perceived as a partisan institution and his respect for a prior decision of the court, even one he disagreed with.
   
The chief justice asked an intriguing question about precedent Tuesday, wondering whether a 10-year-old decision would help determine the outcome of a case about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Do you think that recent precedent should have a binding effect on how the Court addresses this case?” Roberts asked.
   
Louisiana, the Trump administration and anti-abortion groups have all firmly answered that question with a resounding, “No.”
   
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the Louisiana and Texas laws are not identical. “Louisiana abortion providers have a record of non-compliance with basic safety regulations, and now they want a special exemption from generally accepted medical standards that apply to similar surgical procedures in our state,” Landry said.
   
The Trump administration also argued in court papers that the high court could overrule the Texas case if necessary.
   
Julie Rikelman, the Center for Reproductive Rights lawyer who will argue the case on behalf of a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana, said a trial judge found that abortions in Louisiana are safe and that the law provided no health benefits to women.
   
“This is a law that restricts a constitutional right for no good reason,” Rikelman said.
   
The court also has agreed to review whether abortion providers have the right to go into court to represent the interests of women seeking abortions. A ruling in favor of the state’s argument that the providers lack the right to sue in these circumstances, known as third-party standing, would be a devastating blow to abortion rights advocates since doctors and clinics, not individual women who want abortions, file most challenges to abortion restrictions.
   
A decision is expected by late June.

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Singapore was hit a month ago with a surge in novel coronavirus cases that originated in China but capped the spread. Malaysia and Thailand watched beach tourists drain away as Chinese were required to avoid travel. Factory slowdowns in China caused by workers staying home to dodge the disease cut demand for Indonesian commodities.

Nevertheless, analysts in Southeast Asia expect the region of 654 million to weather this outbreak. The outcome matters because the flow of tourists, capital and raw materials into Southeast Asia is more contingent on China than is the case elsewhere.

Vietnam and the Philippines expect more capital from foreign investors fatigued by risks in China, for example. Southeast Asian governments are cutting interest rates and approving economic stimulus for companies shaken by loss of business. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations is working toward a massive trade liberalization deal with China and Japan to stoke commerce.

“Obviously there’s going to be impact, but again we have the China-plus-one here,” said Ralf Matthaes, founder of the Infocus Mekong Research consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, referring to investors with plants in China hoping to diversify into a second country.

“There’s lots of people who are moving their factories here, so I think all [the coronavirus] does is emphasize that you’ve got to further decentralize your manufacturing bases,” Matthaes said.

Southeast Asian manufacturers may diversify sources of supply, too, said Tham Siew Yean, professor emeritus at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. “But this will impact costs since alternative sources, where available are more expensive,” she said.

Several Southeast Asian countries hope interest rate cuts will stimulate corporate lending.

Indonesia, a coal, gas and rubber supplier, dropped rates to 4.75% last month against the risk of falling commodity prices. Chinese manufacturers usually buy those raw materials but orders slowed when many workers stayed home last month after the Lunar New Year.

Thailand lowered its rate to 1% last month because of its “large exposure” to Chinese tourism and reliance on Chinese auto manufacturing, Moody’s Analytics said in a February 26 research note. Malaysia could cut rates as well as consumer demand falls, the note says.

Singapore has reported the region’s biggest single-country outbreak, 98 cases, but media reports credit the city-state for getting its caseload contained. Singapore also raised government spending by 7%, despite a budget deficit, across two relief packages totaling $4 billion.

Malaysia and Indonesia came out with their own stimulus packages to combat impacts from the disease officially called  Covid-19.

The Philippine economy will probably grow at least 6% this year because of rate cuts and infrastructure spending due to last through 2022, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank. The Asian Development Bank had forecast last year that the archipelago’s GDP would rise 6.2%.

New roads, airports and power generation projects, worth $180 billion, are expected to make the Philippines more attractive to manufacturers. 

“If we play our cards right by doing more infrastructure spending and hasten the pace, we can still grow at 6%,” Ravelas said.

Responses such as these preceded a meeting Monday among senior ASEAN officials. Their economic ministers had been scheduled to meet this month in Las Vegas, but has been postponed.

US, ASEAN Postpone March Summit Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

US, 10 nations from the Southeast Asian bloc had been eyeing summit to boost ties at time when analysts say China continues to expand its influence in Southeast Asia while driving a wedge between Washington, regional allies

ASEAN said last year that it would sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and possibly India at this year’s session. The deal would cut tariffs, a boon to exporters.

“This will widen integration and as one of the largest international grouping it will provide a strong signal for the support of international trade despite the negative impact on trade from the COVID.” Tham said.

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Imagine wearing a device that allows you to communicate your thoughts directly to a machine.  Researchers and companies have been working on this type of technology and coming out with devices that can read your brain signals.  One such company with roots in the Harvard Innovation Lab is working on the integration between the human mind and machines.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details

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The publisher of John Bolton’s highly anticipated memoir has pushed back the release date from March 17 to mid-May.

Simon & Schuster cited the ongoing government security review of the former national security adviser’s “The Room Where It Happened.”

The new date is May 12, the publisher said in a news release.

“The new date reflects the fact that the government review of the work is ongoing,” Simon & Schuster said.

The Associated Press reported last November that Bolton had reached a $2 million deal with Simon & Schuster. The book focuses on Bolton’s contentious time in the Trump administration. It is expected to contain allegations that President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden. The issue was at the center of the impeachment process. In February, the Senate acquitted Trump.

Trump has denied the allegations.

Bolton was widely criticized for not sharing details from his book during the hearings. He had stated his willingness to testify, but Senate Republicans rejected calls to hear from any additional witnesses.

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The United Nations has canceled hundreds of human rights events because of coronavirus concerns in accord with the Swiss government’s decision to ban all public gatherings of more than 1,000 people.

In announcing the decision, the president of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, tells delegates she has received an urgent letter from the U.N. director-general in Geneva, spelling out measures that have to be taken in light of the coronavirus situation.

 “The director-general specified that that would entail canceling all side events and encouraging representatives to refrain from traveling to Geneva for the rest of the session,” said Tichy-Fisslberger.  “She also suggested that those special procedure mandate holders who are not already in Geneva could be encouraged to participate in the session via video conferencing.” 

Late last week, Swiss authorities took the unprecedented step of prohibiting large public events in response to a growing number of coronavirus cases. As a consequence, events such as the International Motor Show, which attracts a half-million people and Swiss watch exhibits, which draw enthusiastic crowds of thousands of people, have been canceled.

Human Rights spokesman Rolando Gomez says 200 side events will be canceled until the end of this council session on March 20.  He says that is an unfortunate, but responsible measure to take in order to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.  

He tells VOA the meetings generally attract on average 4,000 to 6,000 participants during the course of the session. He says those side events are very important.

“I should point out just as a technical note they are not official council side events,” said Gomez. “They take place in parallel and they are important as they inform the discussions in the formal proceedings. Of course, those lobbying efforts will continue unabated, which are important.”  

Side events are organized by non-governmental organizations and states.  The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also has spent a lot of time and effort in organizing several gatherings aimed at exploring particular aspects of human rights that demand a more comprehensive hearing and analysis. They will not be held.  

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A Mexican scientist pleaded not guilty Tuesday to U.S. charges that he spied for Russia in Miami.

The plea was entered in a brief hearing by Ronald Gainor, attorney for 35-year-old Hector Cabrera Fuentes. Cabrera stood nearby in chains and a tan jail outfit but did not speak.

Cabrera also has now been formally indicted on a charge of acting as a Russian agent without registering as required with the U.S. attorney general. He is not charged with espionage, but this allegation still carries a potential prison sentence of 10 years.

According to an FBI affidavit, a Russian government official tasked Cabrera with tracking down a vehicle owned by a U.S. government informant in the Miami area. The job was simply to take a photo of its license plate.

The FBI says Cabrera and his Mexican wife went to a condominium complex on Valentine’s Day to take the photo and were recorded by surveillance video. They attracted the notice of security by driving directly behind another car through a gate.

It’s not clear exactly what the Russians were seeking, but the FBI affidavit says the informant had previously provided information about Russian intelligence operations and implications for U.S. national security.

After he was detained Feb. 16 at Miami International Airport, Cabrera told the FBI he has two wives — the Mexican one and a Russian one. The Russian woman and her two daughters were living in Germany but returned to Moscow last spring to attend to some administrative matters. Then, the Russian government wouldn’t let them leave, the affidavit says.

That prompted Cabrera in May 2019 to visit his family in Moscow, where he was approached by a Russian official whom he had met previously at professional events and exchanges. Cabrera told the FBI he believed the official was an intelligence officer and that person gave him the job of photographing the Miami informant’s license plate.

Cabrera, a microbiologist who has held several prestigious posts, is originally from El Espinal in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Cabrera had been working as an associate professor at the medical school jointly run by Duke University and the National University of Singapore, and was working in Singapore. He said at a previous hearing that his contract there has been terminated.

Before Cabrera’s license plate mission, the FBI says the Russian official asked him to rent an apartment in the same complex as the informant but not in his real name. Cabrera paid an associate $20,000 to do so in late 2019. It’s not clear if anything was done in connection with that unit.

Cabrera is being held without bail. No trial date has been set.

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Two Chinese nationals have been charged by U.S. prosecutors with laundering more than $100 million worth of cryptocurrency that had been stolen by North Korean hackers in 2018.

Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong face charges of money laundering, conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.

U.S. authorities say North Korean hackers stole nearly $250 million from a virtual currency exchange in 2018 before laundering the money through hundreds of transactions in order to make the theft difficult to trace. The hackers are allegedly behind the theft of about $50 million from a South Korean virtual currency exchange in 2019.  

In addition to bringing criminal charges against Yinyin and Jiadong, prosecutors filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington to seize control of 113 virtual currency accounts and addresses that had been used by the duo and other co-conspirators.

“Today’s actions underscore that the [Justice] Department will pierce the veil of anonymity provided by cryptocurrencies to hold criminals accountable, no matter where they are located,” assistant attorney general Brian A. Benczkowski said in a statement.  

Yinyin and Jiadong operated virtual currency transmission services but conducted business in the United States without a permit from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.  
 

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It appears U.S. officials and the Taliban have a conflicting understanding about the commitments made within the peace plan.

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North Korea has launched two unknown projectiles, South Korea’s military reported Monday — apparently the North’s first rocket launches of the year.

The projectiles were fired from the Wonsan area toward the sea off North Korea’s east coast, said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. It did not say what type of weapons were launched or how far they traveled.

The launch suggests North Korea will continue provocations, even as it implements emergency measures to prevent or contain a coronavirus outbreak. North Korean authorities have warned those virus containment measures are a matter of “national survival.”

North Korea last conducted a projectile launch in late November. That test came as North Korea was warning of its end-of-year deadline for the United States to offer more concessions in nuclear talks.

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Health officials in Washington state said Sunday night that a second person had died from the coronavirus.

Researchers said the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in the greater Seattle area.

In a statement, Public Health—Seattle & King County said a man in his 70s died Saturday. On Friday, health officials said a man in his 50s died of coronavirus. Both had underlying health conditions, and both were being treated at a hospital in Kirkland, Washington, east of Seattle.

Washington state now has 12 confirmed cases.

State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.

Authorities in the Seattle area said two more people had been diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus, both men in their 60s who were in critical condition, and two health care workers in California were also diagnosed.

A man in his 50s died in Washington on Saturday, and health officials said 50 more people in a nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, are sick and being tested for the virus. On Sunday night, the International Association of Fire Fighters said 25 members who responded to calls for help at the nursing facility are being quarantined.

The first U.S. case was a Washington state man who had visited China, where the virus first emerged, but several recent cases in the U.S. have had no known connection to travelers.

In California, two health care workers in the San Francisco Bay area who cared for an earlier coronavirus patient were diagnosed with the virus on Sunday, the Alameda and Solano counties said in a joint statement.

The health care workers are both employed at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, California, and had exposure to a patient treated there before being transferred to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, the statement said. That patient was the first person in the U.S. discovered to have contracted the coronavirus with no known overseas travel.

Alameda County declared a state of emergency on Sunday following the news.

Elsewhere, authorities announced Sunday a third case in Illinois and Rhode Island and New York’s first cases as worried Americans swarmed stores to stock up on basic goods such as bottled water, canned foods and toilet paper.

The hospitalized patient in Rhode Island is a man in his 40s who had traveled to Italy in February. New York confirmed Sunday that a woman in her late 30s contracted the virus while traveling in Iran. The patient is not in serious condition. She has respiratory symptoms and has been in a controlled situation since arriving in New York, according to a statement from the governor’s office.

As the fallout continued, Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar sought to reassure the American public that the federal government is working to make sure state and local authorities are able to test for the virus. Both said during a round of TV talk show appearances Sunday that thousands more testing kits had been distributed to state and local officials, with thousands more to come.

“They should know we have the best public health system in the world looking out for them,” Azar said, adding that additional cases will be reported and the overall risk to Americans is low.

As the cases ticked up, some Americans stocked up on basic supplies — particularly in areas with diagnosed cases — and began to take note of the impact on daily life. Stores such as Costco sold out of toilet paper, bottled water and hand sanitizer outside Portland, Oregon, where a case was announced Friday. Sports games and practices were canceled into the coming school week. Some churches said they would not offer communion because of fears of viral spread.

As Americans prepared, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington on Sunday said they had evidence the virus may have been circulating in the state for up to six weeks undetected — a finding that, if true, could mean hundreds of undiagnosed cases in the area. They posted their research online, but it was not published in a scientific journal or reviewed by other scientists.

Trevor Bedford, an associate professor who announced the preliminary findings on the virus in Washington state, said on Twitter late Saturday that genetic similarities between the state’s first case on Jan. 20 and a case announced Friday indicated the newer case may have descended from the earlier one. The Jan. 20 case was the first known case in the U.S.

“I believe we’re facing an already substantial outbreak in Washington State that was not detected until now due to narrow case definition requiring direct travel to China,” he said on Twitter.

Bedford did not immediately reply to an e-mail requesting an interview Sunday.

Scientists not affiliated with the research said the results did not necessarily surprise them and pointed out that for many people — especially younger, healthier ones — the symptoms are not much worse than a flu or bad cold.

“We think that this has a pretty high rate of mild symptoms and can be asymptomatic. The symptoms are pretty non-specific and testing criteria has been pretty strict, so those combinations of factors means that it easily could have been circulating for a bit without us knowing,” said Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Adam Lauring of University of Michigan called the findings “high quality work” from scientists who’ve done similar work with the flu virus for years.

“They show their data and they show their work,” Lauring said. “It’s more than a series of tweets” because the researchers back up what they found with data that they’ve shared online. “If there’s something wrong, someone will find it.”

Dr. Carlos del Rio of Emory University School of Medicine said the findings are from respected researchers in genomic sequencing and they make sense because of the geographic proximity of the two cases.

“This is a good time to reinforce the things we all should be doing to stop the spread of flu. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. If you have a cold, stay home … It’s a good time to remind ourselves of that,” he said.

Pence, named by the president to be the point-person overseeing the government’s response, said more than 15,000 virus testing kits had been released over the weekend. And, the administration is working with a commercial provider to distribute 50,000 more, he said.

The vice president said testing was among the first issues raised by governors he’s spoken with so far. Several states have begun their own testing, including Washington state, Oregon and Illinois.

“We’re leaning into it,” Pence said.

Azar said more than 3,600 people already have been tested for coronavirus and the capability exists to test 75,000 people. He forecast a “radical expansion of that” in the coming weeks.

Pence and Azar spoke a day after President Donald Trump approved new restrictions on international travel to prevent the spread within the U.S. of the new virus, which originated in China. There are now more than 80,000 cases worldwide and about 3,000 deaths.

Two Americans are now known to have died of the virus, one in Washington state and one in China.

The new U.S. travel restrictions apply to Iran, although travel there by Americans already is severely limited, as well as heavily affected regions of Italy and South Korea. Trump tweeted Sunday that any travelers from those countries will be screened when they arrive in the U.S.

The number of known coronavirus cases in the U.S. had reached76 as of Sunday, counting people evacuated from a cruise ship and the city of Wuhan in China.

Trump said Saturday at a White House news conference that he was thinking about closing the southern border with Mexico as a precaution. Azar said Sunday that Mexico has few coronavirus cases and that it would take a dramatic change in the circumstances there to prompt serious consideration of a border shutdown.

The president, Azar said, “was trying to say everything’s on the table.”

“We will take whatever measures are appropriate and necessary to protect the American people, but we don’t forecast doing that any time soon,” he said of closing the border.

Pence noted that an infectious disease expert is joining an existing White House coronavirus task force on Monday. Last week, Pence announced the addition of Debbie Birx, a State Department ambassador-at-large and medical doctor who is the administration’s global HIV/AIDS response coordinator, to the virus panel.

Despite calls by Trump and Pence for political unity in the face of the viral threat, the issue has become mired in the partisan rancor in Washington, with both Republicans and Democrats accusing each other of mining the issue for political gain.

Trump, at a political rally last week, accused Democrats of “politicizing” the issue and said their criticism of his handling of the public health challenge was their new “hoax.”

At the White House on Saturday, Trump said he was not trying to minimize the threat from the virus.

“Again, the hoax was used in respect to Democrats and what they were saying,” he said Saturday.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who emerged victorious Saturday night from South Carolina’s primary, criticized the administration over the availability of testing kits.

Biden also panned the administration’s decision to have political appointees Pence and Azar, neither of whom are scientists by training, appear on the Sunday shows, instead of an expert like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health infectious disease chief.

Biden claimed the administration doesn’t have testing kits. Pence and Azar said thousands of kits had been distributed.

Azar said he didn’t know what Biden was talking about when the former vice president said testing kits didn’t exist. Azar said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had developed a lab test for coronavirus with “historic speed.”

Pence was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Azar commented on “Fox News Sunday,” CBS’ “Face the Nation” and ABC’s “This Week.” Biden commented on CNN.

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