The U.S. State Department has determined that dual U.S.-Russian national Ksenia Karelina, also known as Ksenia Khavana, was wrongfully detained in Russia.

Karelina was jailed by a Russian court for 12 years for donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity. The new determination will enable U.S. authorities to operate more actively in securing her release. Karelina’s civil partner remains optimistic that efforts by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump will eventually get her out of the Russian prison in which she is being held.

Click here for the full story in Russian.

 
…

The 27-nation European Union and Canada quickly vowed Tuesday to stand firm against U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to impose 25% tariffs on their steel and aluminum exports, verbal sparring that could lead to a full-blown trade war between the traditionally allied nations.

“The EU will act to safeguard its economic interests,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “Tariffs are taxes — bad for business, worse for consumers.

“Unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered — they will trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures,” she said.

Trump said the steel and aluminum tariffs would take effect on March 12. In response, EU officials said they could target such U.S. products as bourbon, jeans, peanut butter and motorcycles, much of it produced in Republican states that supported Trump in his election victory.

The EU scheduled a first emergency video on Wednesday to shape the bloc’s response.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, which holds the EU presidency, said it was “important that everyone sticks together. Difficult times require such full solidarity.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a conference on artificial intelligence in Paris that Trump’s steel and aluminum levy would be “entirely unjustified,” and that “Canadians will resist strongly and firmly if necessary.”

Von der Leyen is meeting Tuesday with U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Paris, where they are expected to discuss Trump’s tariff orders.

“We will protect our workers, businesses and consumers,” she said in advance of the meeting.

Trump imposed the steel and aluminum tariff to boost the fortunes of U.S. producers.

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “This is the beginning of making America rich again.”

Billionaire financier Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, said the tariff on the imports could bring back 120,000 U.S. jobs.

As he watched Trump sign an executive order, Lutnick said, “You are the president who is standing up for the American steelworker, and I am just tremendously impressed and delighted to stand next to you.”

Trump’s proclamations raised the rate on aluminum imports to 25% from the previous 10% that he imposed in 2018 to aid the struggling sector. And he restored a 25% tariff on millions of tons of steel and aluminum imports.

South Korea — the fourth-biggest steel exporter to the United States, following Canada, Brazil and Mexico — also vowed to protect its companies’ interests but did not say how.

South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok said Seoul would seek to reduce uncertainties “by building a close relationship with the Trump administration and expanding diplomatic options.”

The spokesperson of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said London was “engaging with our U.S. counterparts to work through the detail” of the planned tariffs.

In Monday’s executive order, Trump said “all imports of aluminum articles and derivative aluminum articles from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mexico, EU countries and the UK” would be subject to additional tariffs.

The same countries are named in his executive order on steel, along with Brazil, Japan and South Korea.

“I’m simplifying our tariffs on steel and aluminum,” Trump said. “It’s 25% without exceptions or exemptions.”

Bernd Lange, the chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, warned that previous trade measures against the U.S. were only suspended and could legally be easily revived.

“When he starts again now, then we will, of course, immediately reinstate our countermeasures,” Lange told rbb24 German radio. “Motorcycles, jeans, peanut butter, bourbon, whiskey and a whole range of products that of course also affect American exporters” would be targeted, he said.

In Germany, the EU’s largest economy, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told parliament that “if the U.S. leaves us no other choice, then the European Union will react united.”

But he warned, “Ultimately, trade wars always cost both sides prosperity.”

The European steel industry expressed concerns about the Trump tariffs.

“It will further worsen the situation of the European steel industry, exacerbating an already dire market environment,” said Henrik Adam, president of the European Steel Association.

He said the EU could lose up to 3.7 million tons of steel exports. The United States is the second-largest export market for EU steel producers, representing 16% of the total EU steel exports.

“Losing a significant part of these exports cannot be compensated for by EU exports to other markets,” Adam said.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
…

Russia has hit a record low in the newly released 2024 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International. It occupies the 154th place out of the 180, the lowest placement for the nation in the history of the index. 

VOA Russian spoke to the head of Transparency International in Russia, Alyona Vandysheva, who said the collapse of the Kremlin’s anti-corruption efforts shows the negative impact the war in Ukraine has had on Russia’s government sector. 

Click here for the full story in Russian.  
…

Paris — U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Europeans on Tuesday their “massive” regulations on artificial intelligence could strangle the technology, and rejected content moderation as “authoritarian censorship.”

The mood on AI has shifted as the technology takes root, from one of concerns around safety to geopolitical competition, as countries jockey to nurture the next big AI giant.

Vance, setting out the Trump administration’s America First agenda, said the United States intended to remain the dominant force in AI and strongly opposed the European Union’s far tougher regulatory approach.

“We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry,” Vance told an AI summit of CEOs and heads of state in Paris.

“We feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship,” he added.

Vance criticized the “massive regulations” created by the EU’s Digital Services Act, as well as Europe’s online privacy rules, known by the acronym GDPR, which he said meant endless legal compliance costs for smaller firms.

“Of course, we want to ensure the internet is a safe place, but it is one thing to prevent a predator from preying on a child on the internet, and it is something quite different to prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation,” he said.

European lawmakers last year approved the bloc’s AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive set of rules governing the technology.

Vance is leading the American delegation at the Paris summit.

Vance also appeared to take aim at China at a delicate moment for the U.S. technology sector.

Last month, Chinese startup DeepSeek freely distributed a powerful AI reasoning model that some said challenged U.S. technology leadership. It sent shares of American chip designer Nvidia down 17%.

“From CCTV to 5G equipment, we’re all familiar with cheap tech in the marketplace that’s been heavily subsidized and exported by authoritarian regimes,” Vance said.

But he said that “partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true? Just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley: if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”

Vance did not mention DeepSeek by name. There has been no evidence of information being able to surreptitiously flow through the startup’s technology to China’s government, and the underlying code is freely available to use and view. However, some government organizations have reportedly banned DeepSeek’s use.

Speaking after Vance, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he was fully in favor of trimming red tape, but he stressed that regulation was still needed to ensure trust in AI, or people would end up rejecting it. “We need a trustworthy AI,” he said.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen also said the EU would cut red tape and invest more in AI.

In a bilateral meeting, Vance and von der Leyen were also likely to discuss Trump’s substantial increase of tariffs on steel.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was expected to address the summit on Tuesday. A consortium led by Musk said on Monday it had offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit controlling OpenAI.

Altman promptly posted on X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

The technology world has closely watched whether the Trump administration will ease recent antitrust enforcement that had seen the U.S. sue or investigate the industry’s biggest players.

Vance said the U.S. would champion American AI — which big players develop — he also said: “Our laws will keep Big Tech, little tech, and all other developers on a level playing field.”
…

Russia and Ukraine attacked each other’s energy infrastructure overnight, just days before U.S. and Ukrainian officials were set to discuss steps toward ending the nearly three-year war sparked by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Russian strikes damaged natural gas production facilities in Ukraine’s Poltava region overnight, using a combined attack of 19 cruise, ballistic and guided missiles, the Ukrainian air force said.

As a result of the attack, Ukraine imposed emergency power restrictions on Tuesday, according to Ukraine energy minister German Galushchenko.

“The enemy launched an attack on gas infrastructure overnight,” Galushchenko said in a post on social media. “As of this morning, the energy sector continues to be under attack.”

Russia, which previously focused its missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian electricity sector, recently stepped-up attacks on gas storage and production facilities, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian military said on Tuesday that it had struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region overnight, causing a fire.

It said the refinery produces more than 20 types of petroleum products and is involved in supplying the Russian forces.

Saratov regional Governor Roman Busargin posted on the Telegram messaging app that a fire at an industrial facility in the region had been extinguished. He did not name the facility.

Russia’s defense ministry said air defense units intercepted and destroyed 40 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.

Eighteen of the drones were destroyed over the Saratov region, the ministry said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. The rest were downed over four other regions in Russia’s south and west, it said.

The Russian military also said its forces had taken control of the settlement of Yasenove in eastern Ukraine.

Talks between US and Ukraine

As U.S. Vice President JD Vance prepares for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later this week, President Donald Trump suggested that Ukraine “may be Russian someday.”

Trump talked about the war in a Fox News interview that aired Monday.

“They may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” he said.

Trump also discussed trading Ukraine’s natural resources, such as rare minerals, in exchange for U.S. military support.

“We are going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth,” Trump said. “And they have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don’t feel stupid.”

Trump’s senior advisers are expected to meet with Zelenskyy this week on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg are traveling to Germany for the summit.

“Knowing how the process works, it would probably be better for Zelenskyy if we all met together and talked through it as a group,” Kellogg said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Trump on Monday said he’d “probably” speak with Zelenskyy this week.

Information from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron wants Europe to become a leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, he told a global summit of AI and political leaders in Paris Monday where he announced that France’s private sector has invested nearly $113 billion in French AI.

Financial investment is key to achieving the goal of Europe as an AI hub, Macron said in his remarks delivered in English at the Grand Palais.

He said the European bloc would also need to “adopt the Notre Dame strategy,” a reference to the lightning swift rebuilding of France’s famed Notre Dame cathedral in five years after a devastating 2019 fire, the result of simplified regulations and adherence to timelines.

“We showed the rest of the of the world that when we commit to a clear timeline, we can deliver,” the French leader said.

Henna Virkkunen, the European Union’s digital head, indicated that the EU is in agreement with simplifying regulations. The EU approved the AI Act last year, the world’s first extensive set of rules designed to regulate technology.

European countries want to ensure that they have a stake in the tech race against an aggressive U.S. and other emerging challengers. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is scheduled to address the EU’s ability to compete in the tech world Tuesday.

Macron’s announcement that the French private sector will invest heavily in AI “reassured” Clem Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, a U.S. company with French co-founders that is a hub for open-source AI, that there will be “ambitious” projects in France, according to Reuters.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s head, told the gathering that the shift to AI will be “the biggest of our lifetimes.”

However, such a big shift also comes with problems for the AI community. France had wanted the summit to adopt a non-binding text that AI would be inclusive and sustainable.

“We have the chance to democratize access [to a new technology] from the start,” Pichai told the summit.

Whether the U.S. will agree to that initiative is uncertain, considering the U.S. government’s recent moves to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance is attending the summit and expected to deliver a speech on Tuesday. Other politicians expected Tuesday at the plenary session are Chinese Vice Premier Zhan Guoqing and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. About 100 politicians are expected.

There are also other considerations with a shift to AI. The World Trade Organization says its calculations indicate that a “near universal adoption of AI … could increase trade by up to 14 percentage points” from what it is now but cautions that global “fragmentation” of regulations on AI technology and data flow could bring about the contraction of both trade and output.

A somewhat frightening side effect of AI technology is that it can replace the need for humans in some sectors.

International Labor Organization leader Gilbert Houngbo told the summit Monday that the jobs that AI can do, such as clerical work, are disproportionately held by women. According to current statistics, that development would likely widen the gender pay gap.
…

Senior advisers in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump are preparing to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, according to an Associated Press interview with retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.

Kellogg, a special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, said planning continues for talks with Zelenskyy at the annual conference. 

Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kellogg are among those who could participate in the sideline conversations with Ukraine’s president, AP reported. 

Trump has been critical about how much the war is costing the U.S. and has said European countries should repay the U.S. for helping Ukraine. 

During his campaign, Trump said if he were elected president, he would bring a swift end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, but he did not specify how he would accomplish that. 

Recently, he has said that he wants to make a deal with Ukraine to continue U.S. support in exchange for access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.  

On Monday, AP reported the president said there are people currently working on a money-for-minerals-deal with Ukraine.  

“We have people over there today who are making a deal that, as we give money, we get minerals and we get oil and we get all sorts of things,” Trump said. 

Kellogg told AP that “the economics of that would allow for further support to the Ukrainians.”

Meanwhile, Russian drone attacks caused a fire in Kyiv, injured a woman in Sumy and damaged several homes, according to Ukrainian officials. 

The Russian military reported downing 15 Ukrainian drones overnight, including seven in the Krasnodar region.

Nobody was hurt as a result of the fire in Kyiv, which was sparked in a non-residential building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Five houses were damaged and a woman was reportedly injured in the northeastern city of Sumy, regional governor Ihor Kalchenko said on Telegram.

 

Material from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.
…

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS — Judges at the International Criminal Court have officially asked Italy on Monday to explain why the country released a Libyan man suspected of torture, murder and rape rather than sending him to The Hague.

Italian police arrested Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, last month but rather than extraditing him to the Netherlands, where the ICC is based, sent him back to Libya aboard an Italian military aircraft.

“The matter of state’s non-compliance with a request of cooperation for arrest and surrender by the court is before the competent chamber,” the court’s spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah said in a statement.

Addressing parliament last week, Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio defended the decision to send al-Masri home, claiming the ICC had issued a contradictory and flawed arrest warrant. The court, he said, “realized that an immense mess was made,” he told lawmakers.

Al-Masri was arrested in Turin on the ICC warrant on Jan. 19, the day after he arrived in the country from Germany to watch a soccer match. The Italian government has said Rome’s court of appeals ordered him released on Jan. 21 because of a technical problem in the way that the ICC warrant was transmitted, having initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry.

The ICC said it does not comment on national judicial proceedings.

Al-Masri’s arrest had posed a dilemma for Italy because it has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli as well as energy interests in the country.

According to the arrest warrant, al-Masri heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force, which acts as a military police unit combating high-profile crimes including kidnappings, murders as well as illegal migration.

Like many other militias in western Libya, the SDF has been implicated in atrocities in the civil war that followed the overthrow and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Additionally, any trial in The Hague of al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.

In October, the court unsealed arrest warrants for six men allegedly linked to a brutal Libyan militia blamed for multiple killings and other crimes in a strategically important western town where mass graves were discovered in 2020.
…

PARIS — In front of political and tech leaders gathered at a summit in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron called for a strategy on Monday to make up for the delay in France and Europe in investing in artificial intelligence (AI) but was faced with a “counter-summit” that pointed out the risks of the technology. 

The use of chatbots at work and school is destroying jobs, professions and threatening the acquisition of knowledge, said union representatives gathered at the Theatre de la Concorde located in the Champs-Elysees gardens, less than a kilometer from the venue of the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence. 

Habib El Kettani, from Solidaires Informatique, a union representing IT workers, described an “automation already underway for about ten years,” which has been reinforced with the arrival of the flagship tool ChatGPT at the end of 2022. 

“I have been fighting for ten years to ensure that my job does not become an endangered species,” said Sandrine Larizza, from the CGT union at France Travail, a public service dedicated to the unemployed. 

She deplored “a disappearance of social rights that goes hand in hand with the automation of public services,” where the development of AI has served, according to her “to make people work faster to respond less and less to the needs of users, by reducing staff numbers.” 

Loss of meaning 

“With generative AI, it is no longer the agent who responds by email to the unemployed person but the generative AI that gives the answers with a multitude of discounted job offers in subcontracting,” said Larizza. 

This is accompanied by “a destruction of our human capacities to play a social role, a division into micro-tasks on the assembly line and an industrialization of our professions with a loss of meaning,” she said, a few days after the announcement of a partnership between France Travail and the French startup Mistral. 

“Around 40 projects” are also being tested “with postal workers,” said Marie Vairon, general secretary of the Sud PTT union of the La Poste and La Banque Postale group. 

AI is used “to manage schedules and simplify tasks with a tool tested since 2020 and generalized since 2023,” she said, noting that the results are “not conclusive.” 

After the implementation at the postal bank, La Banque Postale, of “Lucy,” a conversational robot handling some “300,000 calls every month,” Vairon is concerned about a “generative AI serving as a coach for bank advisers.” 

‘Students are using it’ 

On the education side, “whether we like it or not, students are using it,” said Stephanie de Vanssay, national educational and digital adviser of the National Union of Autonomous Unions (UNSA) for primary and secondary school. 

“We have indifferent teachers, worried teachers who are afraid of losing control and quality of learning, skeptics, and those who are angry about all the other priorities,” she said. 

Developing the critical thinking of some 12 million students is becoming, in any case, “an even more serious concern and it is urgent to explain how to use these tools and why,” de Vanssay said. 

The Minister of National Education Elisabeth Borne announced on Thursday the launch of a call for tenders for an AI for teachers, as well as a charter of use and training for teachers. 

“No critical thinking without interactions and without helping each other to think and progress in one’s thinking, which requires intermediation,” said Beatrice Laurent, national secretary of UNSA education. “A baby with a tablet and nursery rhymes will not learn to speak.”
…

Bucharest, Romania — Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced his resignation on Monday following mounting pressure from populist opposition groups, two months after a top court annulled a presidential election in the European Union country.

“To spare Romania from this crisis, I am resigning as president of Romania,” he said in an emotional address, adding that he will leave office on Feb. 12.

Iohannis, 65, held the presidential role since 2014 and served the maximum of two five-year terms. But his presidency was extended in December after the Constitutional Court canceled the presidential race two days before a Dec. 8 runoff.

That came after the far-right populist Calin Georgescu unexpectedly won the first round, after which allegations emerged of Russian interference and electoral violations.

Several opposition parties, including the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), the nationalist SOS party and the Party of Young People — but also some members of the reformist Save Romania Union party — sought Iohannis’ ouster through a motion filed to Parliament. Some lawmakers from the governing coalition were also expected to vote in favor.

“This is a useless endeavor because, in any case, I will leave office in a few months after the election of the new president,” Iohannis said. “It is an unfounded move because I have never — I repeat, never — violated the constitution. And it is a harmful endeavor because … everyone loses, and no one gains.”

He added that the consequences of his ouster would be “long-lasting and highly negative” for Romania, an EU member since 2007, and a NATO member since 2004. “None of our partners will understand why Romania is dismissing its president when the process for electing a new president has already begun,” he said.

New dates have been set to rerun the presidential vote with the first round scheduled for May 4. If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the ballot, a runoff would be held two weeks later, on May 18. It is not yet clear whether Georgescu will be able to participate in the new election.

After his resignation announcement, clashes broke out between Georgescu supporters and police in front of the government building in the capital, Bucharest.
…

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — Europe’s Euclid space telescope has detected a rare halo of bright light around a nearby galaxy, astronomers reported Monday. The halo, known as an Einstein ring, encircles a galaxy 590 million light-years away, considered close by cosmic standards.  

A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Astronomers have known about this galaxy for more than a century and so were surprised when Euclid revealed the bright glowing ring, reported in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.  

An Einstein ring is light from a much more distant galaxy that bends in such a way as to perfectly encircle a closer object, in this case a well-known galaxy in the constellation Draco.  

The faraway galaxy creating the ring is more than 4 billion light-years away. Gravity distorted the light from this more distant galaxy, thus the name honoring Albert Einstein. The process is known as gravitational lensing.

“All strong lenses are special, because they’re so rare, and they’re incredibly useful scientifically. This one is particularly special, because it’s so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful,” lead author Conor O’Riordan of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics said in a statement.

Euclid rocketed from Florida in 2023. NASA is taking part in its mission to detect dark energy and dark matter in the universe.
…