US Business

President Joe Biden met Friday with relatives of basketball star Brittney Griner and fellow US citizen Paul Whelan, who are both imprisoned in Russia, as the US works to bring them home, the White House said.

In separate Oval Office meetings, Biden conferred with Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth Whelan, and then Cherelle Griner, the wife of the Olympic gold medalist.

After the meetings the White House released a statement saying Biden “appreciated the opportunity to learn more about Brittney and Paul from those who love them most, and acknowledged that every minute they are being held is a minute too long.”

The statement did not include any details about the status of talks with Russian authorities, but National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters earlier in the day that “discussions are ongoing” to secure Griner’s release.

“The president is not going to let up. He’s confident that this is going to remain at the forefront of his mind and his team’s mind,” Kirby said.

Cherelle Griner, in a statement released by her wife’s agent, thanked Biden for the meeting and his “administration’s efforts to secure her release.”

“I’ve felt every minute of the grueling seven months without her,” she said.

In August, Moscow said it was ready to discuss a prisoner swap for Griner, sparking hopes of a rapid resolution.

Kirby said the Biden administration had made what he called a serious proposal but “they are not responding to our offer.”

“These two individuals ought to be home already. Period,” he added.

Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for possessing vape cartridges with a small amount of cannabis oil.

The 31-year-old, who was in Russia to play for the professional Yekaterinburg team during her off-season from the Phoenix Mercury, was charged with smuggling narcotics.

In early August she was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony.

Former US marine Whelan, 52, was arrested in December 2018 and accused by Russian security services of spying. 

He was detained on a visit to Moscow to attend a wedding when he took a USB drive from an acquaintance, thinking it contained holiday photographs. He did not look at the contents of the drive, but his lawyer said it contained “state secrets.”

The former security official at a vehicle parts company — who also has British, Canadian and Irish passports — was sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges in June 2020. 

The US Justice Department on Friday appealed in part a judge’s decision to halt the review of seized documents from former president Donald Trump’s Florida estate, asking to continue its investigation of those materials marked as classified.

Federal investigators have been blocked since last week from reviewing thousands of documents taken by the FBI from Trump’s seaside mansion, after a judge sided with the former president and decided to appoint an independent arbiter to sort through the files.

The Justice Department, in its filing Friday evening, argued that Judge Aileen Cannon “fundamentally erred in appointing a special master and granting injunctive relief,” but would limit its appeal to just the “roughly 100 records bearing classification markings,” recovered from Trump’s estate.

Delaying the review of the classified documents, which it argues are government property, “impedes the government’s efforts to protect the Nation’s security,” the Justice Department said.

“It also irreparably harms the government by enjoining critical steps of an ongoing criminal investigation and needlessly compelling disclosure of highly sensitive records, including to Plaintiff’s counsel,” the filing added, referring to Trump’s lawyers.

Trump is facing mounting legal pressure, with the Justice Department saying top-secret documents were “likely concealed” to obstruct an FBI probe into his potential mishandling of classified materials.

He has denied all wrongdoing, and said the raid on his mansion was “one of the most egregious assaults on democracy in the history of our country,” while making it a major talking point at his political rallies.

The appeal will be heard first by a three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit, but could ultimately wind up at the Supreme Court.

On Thursday, Judge Cannon appointed Raymond Dearie to review the files, as the so-called special master.

The 78-year-old senior federal judge in New York was one of two people proposed by Trump’s legal team.

Dearie issued an order on Friday for Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department counsel to meet with him in New York early next week.

Agenda items for the Tuesday meeting are to be submitted by either side by the close of business on Monday, Dearie ordered.

In addition to the documents probe, Trump faces investigations in New York into his business practices, as well as legal scrutiny over his efforts to overturn results of the 2020 election, and for the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. 

South Africa’s leader on Friday agreed to cooperate closely with US President Joe Biden on health, security and climate but warned against punishing African nations for maintaining ties with Russia.

The Biden administration has put a new focus on Africa after being taken aback by the reluctance of some nations to condemn Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, which has triggered sweeping Western sanctions.

President Cyril Ramaphosa enjoyed unusually warm treatment from Biden, who walked him back to his motorcade at the White House, weeks after Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to South Africa and promised that the United States will listen more to Africans.

“We really need to make sure we fully understand one another,” Biden said as he welcomed Ramaphosa in the Oval Office. “Our partnership is essential.”

Ramaphosa said he sought to work together on security, including in South Africa’s troubled neighbor Mozambique, as well as on climate change, a key priority for the Biden administration.

Starting his visit over breakfast with Vice President Kamala Harris, Ramaphosa voiced gratitude to the United States for its “considerable support” on the Covid pandemic as the Biden administration donates 1.1 billion vaccine doses around the world.

“The visit really is about strengthening the relationship between South Africa and the United States,” Ramaphosa said, adding that Washington had a “key role” to play on security across Africa.

But Ramaphosa warned Biden over a piece of legislation that has passed through the US House of Representatives which would require a strategy to counter Moscow’s role in Africa.

Ramaphosa said he explained that Africans should not be “punished” for their historic non-aligned position among major powers.

“I think it will harm Africa and marginalize the continent,” Ramaphosa told reporters after his meetings.

“We should not be told by anyone who we can associate with.”

The legislation, called the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, has yet to clear the Senate and US policymakers stress that it does not in itself lay out any repercussions for African countries.

– ‘Histories’ behind Russia stance –

Successive US administrations have focused much of their energy in Africa on countering the growing influence of China, which has become the continent’s dominant trading partner.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered a new front in the battle for influence in Africa, where many nations have been reluctant to embrace the West in its campaign to pressure Moscow.

South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor denied being neutral but said “there are reasons for the perspectives that exist and one should never, I think, try to pretend that there aren’t histories.”

She pointed to the former Soviet Union’s championing of anti-apartheid forces compared with periods of Western cooperation with South Africa’s former white supremacist regime.

“I think we’ve been fairly clear, in our view, that war doesn’t assist anyone and that we believe the inhumane actions we have seen against the people of Ukraine can’t be defended by anybody,” she said this week at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

The United States has sought to highlight the invasion’s role in soaring food prices, as Ukraine was one of Africa’s largest suppliers of grain.

Russia has sought to blame food scarcities on Western sanctions, an argument dismissed by the United States, which says it is not restricting agricultural or humanitarian shipments.

South Africa’s top diplomat broke with the usual polite bipartisanship of foreign dignitaries visiting Washington, not mincing words on Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump, who notoriously referred to nations in the developing world with an epithet.

“We relate very well, I think probably better, with the Democrats than the Republicans,” she said. “You will recall how President Trump described Africa and no one has apologized for that as yet.”

Trump was the first US president in decades not to visit sub-Saharan Africa. Biden has not yet visited but has pledged a renewed interest, including with a summit of African leaders planned in Washington this December.

The UN General Assembly is back in person after the pandemic disruption but in a world as full of crises as ever, with the war in Ukraine set to pit the West against Russia.

Some 150 world leaders will descend on New York for a week of diplomacy, with all required to come in person to speak save one — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, granted an exception as he leads the fight against Russian invaders.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking ahead of the summit that formally begins Tuesday, said that the world’s divisions “are the widest they have been since at least the Cold War.”

“Our world is blighted by war, battered by climate chaos, scarred by hate and shamed by poverty, hunger and inequality,” Guterres said.

“As fractures deepen and trust evaporates, we need to come together around solutions.”

For the two previous years, the annual meeting that jams traffic through Midtown Manhattan had been a more subdued affair with leaders allowed to send in videos.

The General Assembly voted Friday to let Zelensky speak by video. Seven nations voted against including Russia, saying that the right should be extended to all leaders, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping, not planning to travel to New York.

Several US adversaries are expected, however, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, defying loud protests from their opponents in the United States.

Richard Gowan, who follows the United Nations for the International Crisis Group, said that Zelensky’s speech will “get 1,000 times more attention than most in-person speeches by other leaders.”

“But Zelensky has to be careful. A lot of non-Western politicians are resentful of the West’s focus on Ukraine and worry that the war is distracting international attention from issues like the global food crisis,” he said.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, acknowledged the concerns, saying that despite discussions on Ukraine, “it will not be the only thing that we’re dealing with.” 

“We cannot ignore the rest of the world and what is happening in the rest of the world, the impact of climate change, the impact of the pandemic, conflicts elsewhere in the world,” she said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday will co-chair a summit on food security with the African Union, European Union and Spain as high global prices — worsened by the invasion of major grain producer Ukraine — bring new hunger around the world.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said that he will seek “dialogue with our partners from the South to avoid planting this idea that it’s the West against the rest.”

– Push on climate –

Despite the shift toward normalcy, the schedule of the General Assembly was scrambled by the death of Queen Elizabeth II. US President Joe Biden, who traditionally would have been one of the first speakers Tuesday and who would have led the food summit, will instead speak Wednesday.

And with Covid concerns lingering, the United Nations is still limiting the size of delegations and requiring the wearing of masks in the towering headquarters on the East River.

Prime Minister Liz Truss, who took office two days before the death of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, will fly after the funeral to the United Nations on her first foreign trip since taking office.

The UN summit will also mark a fresh occasion to build momentum on global action on climate change, amid mounting signs that the planet is descending into dangerous levels of warming.

“We have run out of time to waste,” said Ambassador Walton Webson of Antigua and Barbuda, heading the Alliance of Small Island States.

“Our islands are being hit with more severe and more frequent climate impacts and recovery comes at the cost of our development,” he said.

Guterres said he will use the week to speak frankly with leaders amid guarded hopes for further progress on climate during the next climate summit, COP27, in Egypt in November.

Smash hits like “Squid Game” and “Parasite” may make it look easy, but Emmy-winner Lee Jung-jae says South Korean cinema spent years learning how to reach unprecedented global audiences through stories about the competitiveness and violence of modern life.

Lee spoke to AFP just days after making history as the first foreign-language performer to win the Emmy for best actor in a drama with “Squid Game” — the most-watched Netflix show of all time.

“As a piece of work that is not in English that we’re able to bring to the global audience, we’re very happy about that,” said Lee.

“Even from Korea everybody was so happy and they were sending me congratulating messages,” he said during an interview at the Toronto film festival.

“When I go back there’s a lot of interviews and things waiting for me!”

The brutal social satire about misfits and criminals competing for cash in twisted versions of schoolyard games followed in the footsteps of South Korea’s “Parasite,” which two years earlier became the first foreign-language movie to win best picture at the Oscars.

“For a long time, Korean cinema has been trying to figure out how to connect better with global audiences,” said Lee.

“Now, as a result of these years-long efforts, we see a lot of high-quality content, that has resonated around the world and won critical acclaim.”

It has also been a huge commercial success: “Squid Game” director Hwang Dong-hyuk is writing an eagerly-awaited second season, with Lee teasing that his character Seong Gi-hun “will be completely different” this time around.

– ‘Overly competitive’ –

But before then comes “Hunt,” Lee’s directorial movie debut, which earned a prestigious “gala presentation” premiere this week at the Toronto International Film Festival — relatively rare for an Asian-language film. 

The twisty Cold-War era spy thriller in which Lee also stars is loosely based on real 1980s political events, including an attempted assassination of South Korea’s president and the defection of a North Korean pilot.

Lee said the film shares some themes with “Squid Game” — including its unflinching depiction of violence, as rival South Korean spies turn against and even torture one another.

For instance, it too looks at how an “overly competitive society could actually lead to people hurting each other.”

“Hunt” has already topped the box office in its home country, and will be released in North American theaters and on-demand streaming on December 2 by Magnolia Pictures. 

But in a further sign of how Korean movie-making is adapting to the needs of its new-found audience, the final version reflects a more global film.

Following its initial screening at the Cannes film festival in May, some critics complained the plot was difficult to follow for Western audiences not familiar with Korean politics, so Lee re-cut it to simplify some elements, and revised the subtitles.

But, he emphasized, the film is less about Korean history and more about “how this violence is happening all around the world globally,” hurting ordinary people.

“This movie is about these two protagonists and whether their principles are righteous.”

“What’s most important is, because it’s an espionage action-drama, that I just want you to really enjoy the film,” he said.

– ‘Growing closer’ –

When “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho stunned Hollywood by winning best picture at the Oscars in 2020, he spoke about the importance of overcoming “the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles.”

Lee said he has not discussed South Korea’s newfound global clout with Bong, but agreed that the country’s culture “has become widely understood globally” as the world becomes more inter-connected via technology such as global streaming and social media.

“In Korea actually we watch a lot of content from different countries and all around the world, so it’s very natural for us,” he said.

He added: “The world is a lot closer now… Korea’s distinctive story is not something that is difficult for foreign audiences to understand.”

“It’s natural. With everyone growing closer to each other, it’s not difficult to understand the emotions — whether it’s pain or grief — of others, because we live in a world where feelings are shared instantly.”

Western leaders voiced revulsion and outrage Thursday after Ukraine found a mass grave outside the formerly Russian-occupied city of Izyum and said that almost all of the exhumed bodies showed signs of torture.

Officials counted 450 hastily dug graves, some marked by rough wooden crosses at the site in a pine forest only recently recaptured by Ukrainian fighters.

“Among the bodies that were exhumed today, 99 percent showed signs of violent death,” Oleg Synegubov, head of Kharkiv regional administration, said on social media.

“There are several bodies with their hands tied behind their backs, and one person is buried with a rope around his neck,” he added.

“Russia leaves only death and suffering. Murderers. Torturers,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Some of the remains exhumed included children and people who were likely tortured before dying, he added.

The European Union is “deeply shocked” at the newest discovery of a mass grave left by the Russians in the nearly seven-month-old war, said the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“This inhuman behaviour by the Russian forces, in total disregard of international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions, must stop immediately,” he said in a statement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the graves likely provided more evidence that Russia is committing war crimes in its pro-Western neighbor, and French President Emmanuel Macron said what happened in Izyum were atrocities.

“I condemn in the strongest terms the atrocities committed in Izyum, Ukraine, under Russian occupation,” Macron tweeted.

Those responsible “will have to answer for their acts. There is no peace without justice,” he added.

– Putin sticks to his guns –

The discovery added to the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, after his forces were driven into retreat in Kharkiv and are under heavy pressure from Ukrainian troops ion Donetsk and Kherson.

Putin, at a regional summit in Uzbekistan, was told by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that now was “not a time for war”. 

The discovery also came a day after Putin admitted that China, whose leader Xi Jinping was also attending the summit, had expressed “concerns” about the situation in Ukraine, which Russian forces invaded on February 24.

“I think what you’re hearing from China, from India, is reflective of concerns around the world about the effects of Russia’s aggression on Ukraine,” Blinken said in Washington. 

But Putin remained steadfast, despite strong evidence that his forces incurred heavy losses in the Ukraine counteroffensive this month, and as Washington announced another $600 million in arms and ammunition for Kyiv.

“The plan is not subject to adjustment,” Putin said. “Our offensive operations in Donbas itself do not stop. They are going at a slow pace… the Russian army is occupying newer and newer territories.”

Putin said the main goal of the campaign was “the liberation of the entire territory of Donbas.”

He accused Ukrainian forces of attempts to carry out “terrorist acts” and damage Russian civilian infrastructure.

“We are really quite restrained in our response to this, for the time being,” Putin said. “If the situation continues to develop in this way, the response will be more serious.”

– UN speech –

As the investigation into the Izyum mass grave opened, the United Nations overcame  Russian opposition and voted to allow Zelensky to address next week’s General Assembly by video.

Of the 193 member states, 101 voted in favor of allowing Zelensky to “present a pre-recorded statement” instead of in-person as usually required. 

Seven members voted against the proposal, including Russia, and 19 abstained.

“We deeply regret that Russia’s war does not allow our president to participate in person,” said Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya.

Zelensky’s address is slated for the afternoon of September 21, but changes are likely due to many leaders heading to London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Monday.

– Graves without names –

The exhumations at the forest grave near Izyum were just a part of the horrific revelations of the impact of the war and Russia’s occupation of the area between March and early September.

“This is part, horrifically … of an ongoing story whenever we see the Russian tide recede from the parts of Ukraine that it has occupied,” said Blinken.

Ukraine national police chief Igor Klymenko said they had found multiple torture rooms in the town of Balakliya and elsewhere in Karkhiv since the Russians were driven out.

The United Nations in Geneva said it hopes to send a team to determine the circumstances of the deaths.

At the Izyum site two men in white overalls were digging the sandy soil.

Soon they reached the first body, exhumed it and placed it in a white plastic body bag. As more bodies appeared, the strong smell of rotting flesh spread among the trees and rough wooden crosses.

Where identification was possible, names were attached to the crosses.  

At one spot, a family with a young child was buried, said Oleg Kotenko, the government official in charge of the search for missing persons nationwide.

“They were killed. There are witnesses from the same building. They saw what happened and buried these people here,” he said.

“The graves without names are for those found dead in the street,” he said.

Fifty or so migrants sent to the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard in the northeastern United States as part of a political battle over immigration will be temporarily housed at a military base not far from there, the governor of Massachusetts said Friday. 

The migrants, mostly Venezuelans and including children, arrived Wednesday at Martha’s Vineyard, a Democratic stronghold and popular vacation spot for the country’s political elite. 

They had been put on board flights from Texas which the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, says he chartered. 

Despite local mobilization to help the new arrivals, the island is “not equipped to provide sustainable accommodation, and state officials developed a plan to deliver a comprehensive humanitarian response,” said a statement from the administration of Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican.

State authorities on Friday offered to move the migrants, on a voluntary basis, to temporary accommodation at the nearby Joint Base Cape Cod.

“Families will not be separated,” the statement said, noting that the base had previously served as an emergency shelter and that the migrants would have access to care and legal services.

According to local media, the migrants were on their way to the base by midday Friday.

Some of them had said they had not known they were being sent to an island. 

– ‘Human trafficking’ –

Local Democrat legislator Julian Cyr called for an investigation. 

“Whether or not this meets the legal threshold for human trafficking, this meets the moral threshold of human trafficking,” he told local television, adding that he hoped the Department of Justice would look into the incident.

Sending migrants to Democratic strongholds has become a political cudgel for the American right as a means of denouncing President Joe Biden’s immigration policy, which they say has allowed undocumented migrants to cross the border with Mexico in large numbers.

It is also a way to try to place immigration at the center of the campaign for the midterm elections in November. 

On Thursday morning, two buses carrying migrants arrived near the official residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, a place chosen on purpose because she is overseeing the explosive issue of immigration for the White House. They had been sent by Texas’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

The White House on Friday again slammed the Republican governors’ tactics towards people who have fled the socialist regime in Venezuela.

“These were children. They were moms. They were fleeing communism. And what did Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott do to them? They use them as political pawns, treating them like chattel in a cruel, premeditated political stunt,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.

“These are the kinds of tactics we see from smugglers in places like Mexico and Guatemala. And for what? A photo op?” she said.

But DeSantis shot back by mocking the fact that the migrants had been transferred off the wealthy island.

“By the way, they already bussed them out. They said, ‘We want everyone. No one’s illegal.’ And they’re gone within 48 hours,” he said.