Latest news with #VoiceofAmerica
The Hill
17 hours ago
- Business
- The Hill
Judge criticizes Trump administration in VOA funding dispute
A federal judge is asking the Trump administration to explain why it has not restored operations at Voice of America (VOA) as the president looks to dismantle the English-language broadcaster. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Wednesday court filings requested the administration provide an explanation by Aug. 13, saying its leaders need to show what it is doing with the $260 million Congress appropriated for VOA's operations this year. Kari Lake, the a top adviser at the U.S. Agency for Global Media and an ally of President Trump, announced in June that hundreds of employees at VOA would be laid off as the broadcaster as largely gone dark since. Lake called the move at the time 'long overdue' and earlier this year testified before Congress about efforts to scale back the outlet, which she and critics of the outlet say is 'bloated' and not in line with the Trump administration's objectives. 'Without more explanation, the court is left to conclude that the defendants are simply trying to run out the clock on the fiscal year, without putting the money Congress appropriated toward the purposes Congress intended,' Lamberth wrote.
Spectator
a day ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Britain shouldn't put up with Donald Trump
History is the march of folly and far too many of my countrymen are hearkening to a drumbeat which would lead us to disaster. On Tuesday several of our newspapers led with variations of the same headline: 'Trump: cut tax to beat Farage.' This is idiotic counsel, given the state of Britain's public finances. I would have thought the way to beat populism was not by emulating its idiocies but by prudent, cautious, sensible management of a nation tired of liars. If Donald Trump teaches us anything, it is how to ruin a great nation. Far more useful than parroting the US President's delusions would be telling the British people more than they are currently permitted to read about his manic conduct of office. The bullying of the Fed chair Jerome Powell, who is trying to maintain the integrity of the currency; the campaign against federal judges seeking to defend the rule of law; the cancellation of Voice of America and public broadcast funding which protect genuinely free speech; the attacks on independent universities who uphold free inquiry; the brutal removal of immigrants to foreign prisons devoid of human rights which tramples over the memory of Ellis Island welcoming the poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the demolition of climate change research which weakens America's global leadership; the economic innumeracy of tariffs which shred the US's decades-long tradition of freer trade; the assault on science-based health policies which undermine the country's moral standing; and the indulgence of Israel's persecution of the Gazans which alienates old allies. It is not morning again in America, but the twilight of all that made it great. Faced with this folly, what do our leaders do? We are not Greeks to their Romans, we just offer tribute to the barbarians. It was cringe-making to see Keir Starmer received by Trump as a supplicant, ascending the steps of the President's Scottish palace at Turnberry to be harangued about the shortcomings of Britain from wind turbines to migrant boats. As John of Gaunt said in Richard II, our country 'hath made a shameful conquest of itself'. Back in the days when Boris Johnson was ascendant and Trump in his first term, Professor Sir Michael Howard OM, the wisest man I have ever known, said to me fiercely: 'We must never allow ourselves to suppose that all this is normal. Populism is a perversion of democracy, which will do incalculable harm.' Michael is now nearly six years dead, and Trump's America has become an uglier place than he ever anticipated. Another fine historian, Margaret MacMillan, last week published a lacerating article in Foreign Affairs, cataloguing Trump's insults heaped upon countries around the world. She observes that it is hard to think of a precedent for such wilful destruction of alliances. Here is a man who threatens to seize Greenland, has launched an economic assault on Canada and keeps Ukraine dangling by a thread because of his intermittent infatuation with Russia's Vladimir Putin. He is making America hated by its former friends, and he does not care. But we should. This week's announcement of an EU-US trade deal represents a surrender by Brussels to Trump's bullying, the acceptance of 15 per cent tariffs not because such an outcome represents fair dealing, but for fear of much worse. Trump has far outdone Richard Nixon's 'Madman' gambit against Hanoi. Nixon failed because the North Vietnamese believed him rational. Trump succeeds because many governments, including our own, think him capable of anything if thwarted. And so everywhere we look, those who should be safeguarding our independence make a virtue out of obeisance. The secretary–general of Nato in June sent a message to the US President such as the Emperor Caligula might have thought extravagant in its flattery. This grovel may have preserved the alliance and the precarious arms supply chain to Ukraine for now. But what was once an alliance built on shared values has become a protection racket, and one in which we collude. The King has been persuaded to invite Trump for a state visit that vanishingly few British people welcome. But, like a Sicilian family offering up its daughters, this is supposed to buy us the Don's goodwill. Starmer may feel that is his, reluctant, responsibility. The rest of us, however, have a different duty – to the truth. Trump is the most disreputable US president in history. His arbitrary rule, indifference to legality or morality and institutionalised deceits shame the country of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan. The nation which was once the arsenal of democracy is in danger of becoming its graveyard. Turnberry should have been the occasion to hold Trump to account for all this, and so much more. But instead it was a festival of fawning. Why was almost nothing said about the financial corruption woven into this presidency? Here was Trump using his public office to advertise the expansion of his property empire. No previous incumbent has sought to enrich himself and his family while in office on the billion-dollar scale of Trump. Anne Applebaum in her book Auto-cracy Inc. observes that once upon a time dictators sought to explain or excuse their personal excesses. Now Trump makes them the purpose of his administration. Those of us who study US history and have met many great American public servants respect the quality and seriousness of purpose that have characterised most. Today such people have been replaced by bunglers whose only virtue is loyalty to their employer. Trump rules by menace and foul-mouthed abuse, reflected in deranged posts on his website Truth Social. It is frightening to behold the number of powerful interests, from media tycoons to banks and law firms, who roll over in his path and write their cheques, in fear of his wrath should they defy him. There may appear to be nothing that we or any other nation can do to control this extraordinary man who is bereft of compassion, decency and dignity. But we can at least keep our own dignity and defend our own democracy by rehearsing to each other what Trump is and does. When others fall into line as Trump marches through the ruins, we can, and should, conscientiously object.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge orders Trump administration to explain why order to restore Voice of America wasn't followed
A federal judge on Wednesday essentially accused the Trump administration of ignoring his orders to restore Voice of America's operations and explain clearly what it is doing with the government-run operation that provides news to other countries. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia gave the administration until Aug. 13 to explain how it will get VOA working again. The outlet that dates back to World War II has been largely dark since March. Lamberth said the administration needs to show what it is doing with the $260 million Congress appropriated for VOA's operations this year. Kari Lake, the adviser appointed by Trump to run the government news agencies, said in June that 85% of employees at VOA and its overseers at the U.S. Agency for Global Media had lost their jobs. She called it a 'long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.' Lamberth said there's a process for eliminating funding that had previously been appropriated — Congress must vote on it, as it recently did for NPR and PBS funding. But that hasn't happened here, he said. He scolded the administration for providing 'cagey answers' and omitting key information when asked for it in previous court orders. 'Without more explanation, the court is left to conclude that the defendants are simply trying to run out the clock on the fiscal year, without putting the money Congress appropriated toward the purposes Congress intended,' Lamberth wrote. 'The legal term for that is 'waste.'' There was no immediate comment from the White House. ___ David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at and
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Judge orders Trump administration to explain why order to restore Voice of America wasn't followed
A federal judge on Wednesday essentially accused the Trump administration of ignoring his orders to restore Voice of America's operations and explain clearly what it is doing with the government-run operation that provides news to other countries. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia gave the administration until Aug. 13 to explain how it will get VOA working again. The outlet that dates back to World War II has been largely dark since March. Lamberth said the administration needs to show what it is doing with the $260 million Congress appropriated for VOA's operations this year. Kari Lake, the adviser appointed by Trump to run the government news agencies, said in June that 85% of employees at VOA and its overseers at the U.S. Agency for Global Media had lost their jobs. She called it a 'long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.' Lamberth said there's a process for eliminating funding that had previously been appropriated — Congress must vote on it, as it recently did for NPR and PBS funding. But that hasn't happened here, he said. He scolded the administration for providing 'cagey answers' and omitting key information when asked for it in previous court orders. 'Without more explanation, the court is left to conclude that the defendants are simply trying to run out the clock on the fiscal year, without putting the money Congress appropriated toward the purposes Congress intended,' Lamberth wrote. 'The legal term for that is 'waste.'' There was no immediate comment from the White House. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. ___ David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at and
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First Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- First Post
Radio silence: Trump's fund cuts gift Kim Jong-un a tighter grip on North Korea's ‘mind apartheid'
As US-funded broadcasts are slashed, millions of North Koreans are left more isolated than ever cut off from the outside world and solely at the mercy of the regime's propaganda read more In the world's hermit kingdom, the rulers appear anything but hermits — the face allegations of relentlessly hounding their hapless citizens in a, what many describe as, barbaric fashion, crushing human rights as a hippopotamus crushes a watermelon: with brute force and no second thought. While the rest of the world thrives fighting for greater and unrestricted access to information, those in North Korea are understood to live under an apartheid of the mind, cut off from realities of the world, deliberately by a regime that distorts or blocks information to suit its grip on power. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD For many in North Korea, the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia stood as rare lifelines — vital sources of uncensored news for the bold few willing to risk everything to tune in. But that's now a thing of the past. In a Maga move, US President Donald Trump — who once claimed he 'developed a very good relationship' with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — pulled the plug from these radio services. A switch in DC, silence in Pyongyang When the US Senate passed a funding cut earlier this month, it effectively ended decades of American support for independent media channels that had managed to pierce North Korea's ironclad information barrier. The decision prompted widespread alarm as it became obvious that this move could plunge North Korea's 26 million citizens into even deeper informational darkness, a report in South China Morning Post said. Broadcasts from the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia — two long-standing American-backed radio channels — had served as vital channels, providing North Koreans with unfiltered insights into global affairs, human rights and life beyond their tightly controlled borders. The radio programmes reportedly saw their broadcasts reduced by as much as 80 per cent after an executive order issued by Trump in March called for the dismantling of their parent agency, the United States Agency for Global Media, the Hing Kong-based newspaper reported. Silence after the signal North Korea experts, including Human Rights Watch's Teppei Kasai, expressed concern that this informational blackout would hinder international awareness of North Korea's worsening human rights situation. According to Martyn Williams, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre, the timing could not have been better for Pyongyang's censors. In his analysis for 38 North, he observed that North Korean propagandists had been battling the flow of foreign broadcasts for decades. Suddenly, with no effort on their part, the playing field had tilted decisively in their favour, the South China Morning Post reported. From unity to discord The blow to North Korea-focussed media and human rights efforts didn't occur in a vacuum. For nearly two decades, the North Korean Human Rights Act had anchored America's engagement with the country on a bipartisan basis. Passed in 2004 and renewed in subsequent years, the legislation ensured funding for radio broadcasts, satellite analysis and human rights documentation. These efforts informed everything from US sanctions policy to United Nations reports on crimes against humanity. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD However, that act quietly expired in 2022. Though funding had temporarily continued through the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (DRL), recent cuts proposed by the Trump administration aim to all but eliminate DRL's global funding. Human rights advocates have warned that this move will not only gut existing projects but destroy the infrastructure and institutional expertise necessary to rebuild them later, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch Lina Yoon wrote in Foreign Policy in Focus. Real-world consequences The stakes go far beyond theoretical policy losses. Civil society organisations once supported by the act are now struggling to survive. Groups like the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, which had previously traced illicit financial networks tied to North Korea's cyber theft operations, are at risk of shuttering. The DailyNK, a Seoul-based newsroom that reports using sources inside North Korea, may soon fall silent. Similarly, the Transitional Justice Working Group, known for its geocoding of execution and burial sites using scapee testimony and satellite imagery, may no longer be able to continue its work, Lina wrote. She feared that cutting off these data sources would severely compromise the US government's ability to make informed policy decisions. A regional reversal Compounding the problem, the recently elected South Korean administration under President Lee Jae-myung has reportedly taken a softer stance toward Pyongyang. In addition to ending government-led broadcasts into the North, Seoul has banned activists from launching balloons containing leaflets, rice, medicine and cash across the demilitarised zone. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Human rights observers noted that while this strategy may aim for diplomatic rapprochement, it simultaneously weakens the already scarce flow of outside information into North Korea. Williams from the Stimson Centre told South China Morning Post that the reduced broadcasts would leave North Koreans even more cut off from both local and global events. In a deteriorating security climate, such isolation could come at a high price, not only for North Koreans but for neighbouring countries and allies relying on accurate, timely intelligence. Why the world should pay attention The broader message from policy analysts and human rights organisations is clear: supporting independent media in North Korea is not charity — it's strategy, said Lina. And yet, the Trump administration's broad-stroke cuts threaten to erase years of painstaking progress. Organisations holding DRL grants, including the Unification Media Group and the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, may soon have no funds left to continue. Radio Free Asia has already ceased its Korean-language broadcasts, a move that could embolden Pyongyang's censors and silence dissident voices before they ever reach the airwaves. A future in the dark? Unless the US Congress takes urgent action to renew the North Korean Human Rights Act and protect funding for programmes that monitor and expose the regime's abuses, the world could lose its last windows into the country. As one expert put it, North Korea thrives in the dark. And with Washington now dimming the light, the shadows are growing longer.
