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(WASHINGTON) — It’s been nearly one month since the U.S. withdrew all U.S. troops from Afghanistan on President Joe Biden’s order to leave by Aug. 31, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

Top Pentagon leaders are appearing before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday amid bipartisan criticism of the chaotic withdrawal and on the failure to anticipate the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.

In their appearance before Congress on Tuesday — their first since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan — the leaders candidly admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee that they had recommended to Biden that the U.S. should keep a troop presence there, appearing to contradict his assertions to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:

Sep 29, 11:21 am
GOP links failed drone strike to ‘over-the-horizon’ capabilities

Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, raising the August U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, took direct issue with the U.S. military’s ability to conduct “over the horizon” drone strike capabilities in Afghanistan.

“What we know from your prior statements is that you did not know who it was, who was in the car, whose house it was,” Turner said. “This greatly concerns me as we look to the over horizon claims that the administration has of its ability for counterterrorism.”

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told House lawmakers he took “full responsibility” for the strike.

“That strike was a mistake and I take full responsibility for that strike. I was under no pressure from any quarter to conduct the strike,” McKenzie said.

“While in many cases we were right with our intelligence and forestalled ISIS- K attacks, in this case we were wrong, tragically wrong,” he added.

“Over-the-horizon” capabilities are a cornerstone of the U.S. military’s counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan. The top Pentagon commanders said the U.S. will continue to investigate the intelligence that led to the August strike and will be transparent with their findings.

Sep 29, 10:47 am
Milley praises Afghanistan War veterans, defends calls to China

Echoing Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his opening testimony that lawmakers can debate the decisions surrounding the Afghanistan withdrawal but that the courage of U.S. service members is not up for debate.

“Over the course of four presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, seven chairmen, 10 CENTCOM commanders, 20 commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds of congressional delegation visits, and 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned,” Milley said.

“One lesson we can never forget: every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine who served there for 20 years, protected our country against attack by terrorists, and for that we all should be forever grateful, and they should be forever proud,” he said.

Milley again took the chance to push back on recent characterizations of phone calls to China’s top military official in the final days of former President Donald Trump’s presidency.

“At no time was I attempting to change or influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself into the chain of command. But I am expected to give my advice and ensure that the president was fully informed on military affairs,” he said.

Sep 29, 10:18 am
Defense secretary delivers opening testimony for House lawmakers

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, facing a House panel on Wednesday, repeated his opening testimony given to Senate lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing, in which Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, appeared to contradict Biden by saying they recommended keeping a residual force of 2,500 troops behind in Afghanistan.

Austin again defended leaving Bagram Airfield, saying it would have required at least 5,000 troops and would have “contributed little” to the mission of protecting the embassy in Kabul, which ultimately fell to Taliban control.

“Staying in Baghram even for counterterrorism purposes meant staying at war in Afghanistan, something that the president made clear that he would not do,” Austin said.

He again walked through some “uncomfortable truths” about the two-decade U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, of which he is a veteran.

“We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation. The fact that the Afghan army that we and our partners trained simply melted away, in many cases without firing a shot, took us all by surprise and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise,” he said.

Sep 29, 10:12 am
Heated House hearing underway with residual force in focus

House Armed Services Chair Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., opened Wednesday’s hearing on Afghanistan with a defense of Biden for ending America’s longest war — and with a preemptive strike on the panel’s Republicans, who he said would spend the day trying to get the military leaders to contradict the commander in chief.

“The option of keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan in a peaceful and stable environment did not exist,” Smith said, opening the hearing.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, face a second day of questions from congressional lawmakers on the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.

Ranking Republican member Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said he “could not disagree more” with Smith and called Biden “delusional” before the leaders gave their opening testimonies.

Sep 29, 9:22 am
Top military leaders face more questions in House hearing

The nation’s top military leaders are back on Capitol Hill at 9:30 a.m. before the House Armed Services Committee — where Republicans are expected to seize on their comments from Tuesday that they recommended Biden keep a residual force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, appearing to contradict the president’s comments to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, candidly admitted in a Senate hearing on Tuesday — their first appearance before lawmakers since the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan — that they had recommended the U.S. keep a small troop presence there, with Milley openly advising presidents not to assign complete withdrawal dates without conditions.

In the six-hour hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Milley also characterized that the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan as “a strategic failure” and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that it was time to acknowledged some “uncomfortable truths” about the two-decade U.S. military mission there. House lawmakers are expected to follow up on the revelations on Wednesday.

Sep 28, 3:53 pm
1st Senate hearing with top commanders on Afghanistan adjourns

After nearly six hours of testimonies and tough questions, the Senate Armed Services Committee has adjourned its hearing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command — their first since the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Senators sunk into Milley and McKenzie saying they had recommended leaving 2,500 troops behind as a residual force in Afghanistan ahead of the chaotic evacuation effort. Several GOP senators called on the leaders to resign, to which Milley offered a powerful rebuttal.

“It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken,” Milley said. “My dad didn’t get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, during the hearing, defended Biden’s interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in which the president said the views of his advisers were “split,” saying, “There was no one who said, ‘Five years from now, we could have 2,500 troops, and that would be sustainable.’”

“That was not a decision the president was going to make,” Psaki added. “Ultimately, it’s up to the commander in chief to make a decision. He made a decision it was time to end a 20-year war.”

It’s been nearly one month since Biden withdrew all U.S. troops, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

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(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Over one month into Taliban control of Afghanistan, fears for women’s and girl’s rights and education have only grown — fueled further Tuesday by a top Taliban official’s comments that “women will not be allowed to come to universities or work.”

The tweets from the Taliban-appointed chancellor of Kabul University set off a fresh firestorm, prompting a clarification and a complaint about media coverage, before the outspoken chancellor deleted his Twitter account.

It’s a strange episode that says as much about the Taliban’s acute awareness of international perceptions as it does about what the future of Taliban rule holds for half of Afghanistan’s nearly 40 million people — its women and girls.

While the U.S. and other Western countries have called on the Taliban to respect women’s and girls’ rights, especially access to education, the Taliban have already taken steps to restrict them, including announcing earlier this month that certain subjects may be off limits and female students would be barred from studying with males. That could mean they’ll be excluded entirely, given the limited resources at Afghanistan’s schools and universities.

Already, the militant group has named an all-male cabinet and prohibited women from returning to work, saying there were security concerns that temporarily prevented it. A handful of women-led protests against Taliban rules have faced violent crackdowns in Kabul and other cities.

When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they largely barred women and girls from public life without a male relative and excluded them from schools and universities entirely.

Kabul University chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat suggested a return to that policy Tuesday, tweeting, “As long as a real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work. Islam first.”

After media outlets reported on his comments, he issued a second tweet, criticizing the New York Times in particular for what he called a “bad misunderstanding” of his comments.

“I haven’t said that we will never allow women to attend universities or go to work, I meant that until we create an Islamic environment, women will have to stay at home. We work hard to create safe Islamic environment soon,” wrote the 34-year old, who was named to his role earlier this month.

Hours later, his Twitter account was deleted entirely.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, spun Ghairat’s statement, seemingly keen to ease Western concerns about women’s education, even without denying it was true.

“It might be his own personal view,” Mujahid told the New York Times, according to the paper, which added that he would not give assurances about when the ban on women would be lifted. He only said the militant group was working on a “safer transportation system and an environment where female students are protected.”

Asked about Ghairat’s comments, a State Department spokesperson told ABC News, “Any government should demonstrate respect for and inclusion of women and girls, in all their diversity, including supporting their education. Equal access to higher education on the basis of merit for all individuals is one of the principles codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

But it’s unclear what steps the U.S. or other government would be willing to take to ensure that equal access. The spokesperson didn’t address that issue, saying instead in their statement the U.S. “will continue to support Afghan women and girls.”

The Taliban is already under heavy international sanctions, and the former Afghan government’s U.S. assets, worth billions of dollars, remain frozen by the U.S., while the World Bank and International Monetary Fund suspended funding.

There’s growing pressure from Taliban leaders as well as some Afghan civilians to release those funds as the country’s economy teeters on collapse and millions are desperate for international aid.

During the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, there were enormous gains for women and girls, especially in education. The female literacy rate nearly doubled in a decade to 30% in 2018, according to a UNESCO report this year, and the number of girls in school went from nearly zero in 2001 to 2.5 million in 2018, making up nearly half of all primary students.

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(WASHINGTON) — Top White House climate negotiator John Kerry said in an interview with ABC News Live that every country needs to act to reduce emissions and address climate change faster than ever before, especially after warnings the upcoming climate summit in November could be a failure if more countries don’t increase their commitments to the Paris Agreement.

Kerry said Mother Nature “did a hell of a job whipping up enthusiasm to get something done” after the extreme events and record-high temperatures around the world this past year and said leaders are starting to feel the anticipation for the upcoming COP26 summit where countries will re-examine what they need to do to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius.

“Every country has to go faster. None of us can say we’re really fast,” Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said in an interview with ABC News Live. “There are very few countries, you can get them on one or two hands, that are in keeping with the Paris numbers.”

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said there’s a “high risk of failure” from the COP26 climate summit in November if countries don’t drastically increase commitments to reducing emissions.

The latest report from the United Nations found the world is on track to warm an average of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, failing the goals of the Paris Agreement and triggering consequences from global warming like more extreme heat waves, droughts that would increase impacts on agriculture in some parts of the world and intensifying severe weather events. Even with every country’s current efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they’re expected to increase 16% by 2030, according to the U.N. report.

“The 191 countries that have all put in their plans together, whether they’ve changed them, improved them or kept them the same, that 191 result in a 16% increase in emissions,” Kerry told ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Zee.

“That is a big F — that fails, it fails for everybody,” he added.

Kerry was appointed to the role as special envoy for climate by President Joe Biden to help re-establish the country’s role as a leader in international climate negotiations after former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.

Kerry, who previously served as secretary of state under President Barack Obama and for 28 years as a senator, has traveled to countries like India and China, which generates about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, to speak with leaders about increasing their commitments to reducing the use of fossil fuels.

During the U.N. General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the country will stop financing new coal power projects abroad and will provide more financial support for developing countries to build renewable energy infrastructure. Kerry said that is a good start, but he acknowledged it sends a mixed message when the country continues to use fossil fuels and build new coal power plants inside the country.

“I think now there’s a growing awareness in China,” said Kerry, who recently returned from his second trip to speak with leaders there. “And I think President Xi is personally very invested in this issue. And my hope is that President Xi is going to help us all to come together around certain choices we can each make. It is possible that China could do more to peak earlier or to reduce coal.”

Kerry said he understands frustration from climate activists like Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who recently tweeted that “whatever our so-called leaders are doing, they’re doing it wrong.”

“A lot of them have failed, but I think it’s unfair. I think it’s a little much of a reach to say that, ‘so-called leaders,’ there are a lot of real leaders around and they are trying very, very hard to move this process,” he told ABC News.

Kerry said he understands Thunberg’s frustration and anger, and he is also angry that some people are getting in the way of action on climate change.

“What we need to do is behave like adults and get the job done. And she’s absolutely right to be pressing the urgency of our doing that. But there are leaders out there trying to get some things done, just too slowly in some cases, and we’ve got to speed it up,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — It’s been nearly one month since the U.S. withdrew all U.S. troops from Afghanistan on President Joe Biden’s order, ending a chaotic evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul.

Since then, the U.S. has facilitated the departure of at least 85 U.S. citizens and 79 lawful permanent residents, according to a senior State Department official. In the coming days, they expect to evacuate around 100 more U.S. citizens and residents from the Kabul area.

Even as the last American troops were flown out to meet Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline, other Americans who wanted to flee the country were left behind. The Biden administration is now focused on a “diplomatic mission” to help them leave but some hoping to evacuate are still stuck in the country. Meanwhile, the Taliban announced its new “caretaker” government that includes men with U.S. bounties on their heads — and no women.

Top Pentagon leaders appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday amid bipartisan criticism of the chaotic withdrawal and on the failure to anticipate the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.

Here are the latest developments. All times Eastern:

Sep 28, 9:30 am
Top Pentagon officials testify before Senate on withdrawal

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will face tough questions Tuesday from the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday on the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan. He’s also expected to address reporting that he went outside the regular chain of command with calls to China in the final days of former President Donald Trump’s presidency.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, are also scheduled to appear before the Senate panel alongside Milley. Senators are expected to press the top Pentagon leaders on decisions surrounding the evacuation and of ongoing threats of terrorism in Afghanistan without a U.S. presence on the ground.

It’s been nearly one month since President Joe Biden withdrew all U.S. troops, ending an evacuation operation after the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized the capital Kabul. In those final days, a U.S. drone strike killed at least 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children, an event lawmakers are expected to press military leaders upon on Tuesday.

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(SEOUL, South Korea) — North Korea fired a short-range missile toward the East Sea early Tuesday, according to its neighboring countries, South Korea and Japan, marking the third such weapons test this month.

Military officials in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, D.C. were investigating whether the latest missile was ballistic and if it was launched from a submarine. A ballistic missile launch would violate United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from engaging in any ballistic activities, though the council typically doesn’t slap new sanctions on Pyongyang for testing short-range weapons.

“The missile was fired from the North’s Mupyong-ri in Jagang Province eastward at around 6:40 a.m,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters on Tuesday. “South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities are analyzing the launch for additional information.”

There was “no report of damage to Japan’s aircraft or sea vessels,” according to Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato.

“North Korea’s missile launches pose a serious threat to the safety of our nation and the stability of the region,” Kato said during a press conference on Tuesday morning.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Tuesday that his “government is on high alert and monitoring the situation.”

North Korea has test-launched missiles six times in 2021 so far, three of which occurred this month. North Korean state media claimed that Pyongyang had successfully tested a long-range cruise missile on Sept. 12 and fired two short-range ballistic missiles off the eastern coast three days later.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State condemned the latest weapons test, calling it a “violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions” — a tacit acknowledgment that the United States believes the missile was in fact ballistic.

“We remain committed to a diplomatic approach to the DPRK and call on them to engage in dialogue,” the spokesperson told ABC News in a statement early Tuesday, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

During a press briefing on Monday, State Department deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter told reporters that the U.S. government is “prepared to meet with the DPRK without preconditions, and we certainly hope that the DPRK will respond positively to our outreach.”

Tuesday’s missile launch happened an hour after North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N., Kim Song, delivered remarks at the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, during which he attempted to justify his country’s development of a “war deterrent” to defend against threats from the U.S. and other rivals.

“What we mean by the war deterrent is literally the righteous right to self-defense that can deter aggressive war and defend ourselves,” Kim said. “The possible outbreak of a new war on the Korean Peninsula is contained not because of the U.S.’s mercy on the DPRK, it is because our state is growing a reliable deterrent that can control the hostile forces in an attempted military invasion.”

Moon Sung-muk, an analyst and arms control expert at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, an independent, not-for-profit think tank in Seoul, said Kim’s speech was asking the international community to acknowledge North Korea’s weapons development as inside legal boundaries.

“North Korea is deliberately offering a condition that the U.S. and South Korea cannot accept so that when negotiations fall apart, they can blame their counterparts,” Moon told ABC News on Tuesday. “As preconditions to resume inter-Korean talks, North Korea told South Korea in a statement last Saturday to consider their missile development as a reasonable act of self deterrence.”

North Korea has been sending mixed messages this year. While test-firing a variety of missiles, Kim Yo Jong, the politically powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has hinted that Pyongyang is ready to engage in talks with South Korea and formally declare an end to the Korean War.

“South Korea must not try to upset the balance of military force on the Korean Peninsula with such illogical and childish absurd assertion just as the U.S. does,” she was quoted as saying on Saturday by North Korean state media. “I only hope that the South Korean authorities’ moves to remove the tinderbox holding double standards bereft of impartiality, the hostile policy toward the DPRK.”

But Cha Du-hyeogn, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, an independent, non-profit think tank in Seoul, doubted Pyongyang’s will to come back to the negotiation table.

“North Korea never said they are willing to resume talks without conditions,” Cha told ABC News on Tuesday. “The consecutive statements followed by missile provocations can be seen as a double-sided strategy.”

Cha added that Kim Yo Jong is pushing South Korea to convince the U.S. to lift sanctions if the South is so eager to resume dialogue.

“It’s an attempt to incapacitate the U.S.-South Korea cooperation by making use of national, or inter-Korean, cooperation,” he said.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Pyongyang “is not only testing its missile but also the South Korean government.”

“Pyongyang will wait to see what South Korea has to say about the missile experiment,” Yang told ABC News on Tuesday, “after Kim Yo Jong insisted that South Korea get rid of the double standards on North’s weapons tests if they want inter-Korean dialogue.”

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(NEW YORK) — After almost 16 years as leader of Europe’s most powerful economy, Angela Merkel will be leaving the chancellorship behind as Germany votes on a new parliament. Merkel’s successor — either her Christian Democratic Union appointee, Armin Laschet, or Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats — will be determined only once a new government is formed.

Sunday’s general election saw Scholz’s SPD win 25.7% of the vote, closely followed by the conservative CDU at 24.1%, according to official preliminary results released Monday morning. However, they alone don’t have the majority needed to rule and will have to form strategic coalitions that will determine who will govern the country.

It’s historically rare in German politics that the make-up of a leading coalition and identity of the next chancellor is so unclear. Despite Merkel’s popularity, her CDU struggled to galvanize the conservative party’s traditional base under Laschet, the governor of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state.

Laschet was gaffe-laden during the campaign, including being caught on camera laughing during a tribute to those who died in the devastating floods in West Germany in July. Even on voting day, Laschet made a blunder by folding his ballot the wrong way — making his voting choice visible, which could make his vote invalid.

Climate change has played a central role during the election race. The environmentalist Greens gained more support than anticipated early on.

It could take weeks — if not months — of negotiations between the parties before a coalition government is fully formed. Dr. Ursula Münch from Germany’s Academy of Political Education predicts the transition period to be drawn out.

“Many in Germany are speculating that Merkel might still have to hold the New Years’ speech,” Münch told ABC News.

One thing is certain: Merkel’s exit will mark the end of an era. In her last few weeks, Germans are reflecting on the legacy that she leaves behind.

“Angela Merkel became chancellor when I was 14 years old,” 30-year-old German citizen Svenja Beck told ABC News. “I can hardly remember anyone other than a woman ever ruling our country. It feels crazy that this era is coming to an end. In any case, I hope she can enjoy her well-deserved retirement, especially after these exhausting 1.5 years.”

Indeed, there’s a sense of nostalgia in some young Germans who have only known a country led by the leader known as “mutti,” or mother.

After three terms as chancellor, Merkel is still a popular figure. Last week a survey by Gallup research recorded her approval rating at 71%.

Many Germans have admired her demeanor — an assuring confidence, a pragmatism — others have been assured by her steady economic policies that have enabled the country to weather several crises. She’s also been valued for her ability to reach consensus across governments and political persuasions.

“Merkel’s personal style has left certain marks,” Münch said. “Her rather restrained, unpretentious and matter-of-fact nature does seem to be popular among a large part of the population.”

Beyond that, Münch considers Merkel’s legacy to be defined by her crisis management and ability to deal with adverse situations “step by step.”

Münch noted that while Merkel may approach potential conflicts with hesitation at first, she’ll quickly and thoroughly deal with them once she’s in the thick of it.

“We saw this with the banking crisis, with the Euro rescue, during the refugee crisis and now in particular with the coronavirus,” she added.

But throughout the years, Merkel has received criticism for being too complacent on certain fronts, with environmentalists being particularly vocal in accusing her of not doing enough to tackle climate change.

German citizen Steffen Mechlinski, who voted for the Greens on Sunday, said he’s looking forward to some issues getting more attention under the new leadership:

“After 16 solid years, I am now hoping for an ambitious policy approach, particularly when it comes to climate change, social justice, education and digitalization,” Mechlinski told ABC News.

Internationally, Merkel has enjoyed widespread popularity.

“She’s considered to be a very dependable person in many parts of the world,” Münch said, “although I’m sure that some eastern European and southeastern European states may not agree.”

However, it’s Merkel’s willingness to involve everyone, including smaller states, in policy debates and decisions that gives her a reputation for fairness and dependability.

Münch doesn’t foresee any dramatic changes to Germany’s foreign policy.

“The CDU and the SPD are really not that different from each other,” she said. “Both are transatlantically oriented parties. Both — including the SPD under Olaf Scholz — keep Russia at a distance and approach China with reservations.”

Even the Greens, who will form part of the new government, won’t dramatically impact the direction of Germany’s foreign policy, particularly when it comes to the United States.

“All three parties are transatlantics,” Münch added. “These are all people and parties who care a lot about German-American relations.”

In her years as chancellor, Merkel has resisted taking a tougher stance on China, with trade between the two countries booming.

Münch doesn’t expect doesn’t anticipate dramatic changes toward China, saying that even the Greens must conduct a business-friendly policy.

“Perhaps, when it comes to China, the priority won’t just be foreign trade,” she said, “but that the approach will be more cautious, especially with regards to human rights policies.”

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(MOSCOW) — Russia’s best-known opposition figure, Alexey Navalny, has criticized Google and Apple for bending to Kremlin demands for censorship during recent parliamentary elections, accusing the tech giants of “cowardice” and of becoming “accomplices” to president Vladimir Putin’s efforts to suppress political opposition.

Both companies bowed to Russian government pressure to delete content relating to a tactical voting campaign promoted by Navalny during elections last weekend that saw Russia’s ruling pro-Putin party retain its majority amid accusations of widespread ballot-rigging and a crackdown on anti-Kremlin opposition.

“If something surprised me in the latest elections, it was not how Putin forged the results, but how obediently the almighty Big Tech turned into his accomplices,” Navalny said on Twitter on Thursday — a message written from prison and published by colleagues.

Navalny’s campaign, named Smart Voting, had called for people to vote for any candidate with the best chance of defeating the ruling party, United Russia. The online content had contained lists of registered candidates recommended by Navalny’s team.

Google and Apple removed Smart Voting apps from their stores in Russia, and Google blocked two related videos on YouTube.

The removals are the biggest concession the tech firms have made to Kremlin demands to restrict content and it has set off fears among liberal Russians that it is a significant step towards the companies accepting broader censorship in the country.

Russian authorities outlawed Navalny’s movement earlier this year, after jailing the anti-corruption activist and pro-democracy campaigner who survived a nerve-agent poisoning in 2020. The government in June designated Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and its regional political offices as “extremist organizations,” equating them to violent terrorist groups and requiring social media platforms to ban their content.

The designation has been widely condemned internationally, including by the United States, as politically motivated.

Neither Google nor Apple have made a public statement on the app removals, and each declined to comment to ABC News. In an email explaining the decision to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, published online by Navalny’s team, Apple said it was obliged to follow local laws and cited Russian prosecutors’ allegations that the app enabled “election interference.”

Navalny accused the companies of allowing themselves to be used as instruments of the Kremlin to block legitimate efforts at peaceful opposition, saying they were worried about losing market access to Russia and calling them “hypocrites” for presenting themselves as firms driven by values such as improving the world. Google famously used “Don’t be evil” as a company motto.

“In our case, the very intention to organize voters in order to put competitive pressure on the ruling party was declared criminal, and Big Tech agreed with this,” Navalny wrote.

He also called on employees inside the companies to raise the issue, writing: “I know that most of those who work at Google, Apple, etc. are honest and good people. I urge them not to put up with the cowardice of their bosses.”

Google and Apple in the past largely have resisted Russian government demands that they remove content that criticizes authorities, racking up fines imposed by Russia’s state censor. But recently the Kremlin has escalated pressure on U.S. tech companies amid a broader crackdown on dissent.

The day before Apple and Google each removed the voting app, the companies were made to appear before a committee of Russia’s senate. Andrey Klimov, a prominent senator who heads a commission — Protection of State Sovereignty and Prevention of Interference in the country’s Internal Affairs — accused them of illegal election interference and threatened to penalize them with new legislation.

Days before that, court bailiffs visited Google’s offices in Moscow, demanding the company pay unpaid fines imposed by the state censor. The New York Times reported Google made the decision to remove Navalny’s app after authorities threatened to arrest local employees at Google’s Moscow office.

Security experts have said they’re concerned the Kremlin is now increasingly bent on taming foreign tech giants as it tightens its grip on the Russian internet. The government has blocked a growing number of sites and is developing infrastructure to allow it to cut off Russia’s acces to the global web, if deemed necessary. This year it began slowing down Twitter after the company refused to remove content.

Andrey Soldatov, author of “Red Web,” which examines the Russian government’s efforts to control the internet, said last week’s concession was unlikely to discourage the Kremlin from leaning on Google and Apple further. He said the government was increasingly confident in its technical capabilities to block major international platforms.

“To be honest,” he told ABC News by phone, “things look really, really dark right now.”

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(BEIJING) — Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies dipped in value on Friday after China declared all transactions involving these digital currencies “illegal.”

China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, issued a statement on Friday saying that use of these virtual currencies is disrupting economic order and linked to money laundering, fraud and other illicit activities. While Chinese financial institutions already were banned from doing business with cryptocurrencies, the new statement made clear that cryptocurrencies do not have the same status as legal tender and cannot be used as currency in the marketplace.

Bitcoin dropped some 8% on the news, but recouped some initial losses and was down by some 5% late Friday morning. Ethereum initially shed more than 10%, but was down by some 7% as of 11:30 am ET, according to Coin Desk data.

The notoriously volatile digital currencies are down about 30% from all-time highs in the spring, but Bitcoin still is up some 40% since the start of the year and Ethereum has gained a whopping 290% in 2021.

Friday’s notice from Beijing also made clear that it’s illegal for overseas virtual currency exchanges to provide services to Chinese residents through the internet.

The announcement comes as China experiments on a small scale with its own digital currency issued by its central bank, the first to be created by a major economy. The digital yuan is expected to be rolled out at larger scale imminently, and while it has many similarities to current cryptos the major difference is that it can be more easily traced and controlled by the government.

U.S. financial markets held steady on the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both opening relatively flat on Friday. Analysts and investors around the globe have been keeping a close eye on news out of China, however, amid silence on the Evergrande saga. Debt issues plaguing Evergrande, one of China’s largest real estate developers, sent global markets tumbling earlier in the week as many predicted a default with possible spillover effects to the larger economy.

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(WASHINGTON) — Amid outrage over images the White House said President Joe Biden found “horrible,” the U.S. Border Patrol has temporarily stopped using agents on horseback against Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas, Homeland Security officials said Thursday.

Shortly afterward, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the decision to end the horse patrols in what critics said was offensively harsh treatment of the migrants.

“We have taken very specific actions as it relates to the horrific photos that we — we’re not going to stand for in this administration,” she told reporters at her daily press briefing.

The agents have been put on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Images of Border Patrol agents using their horses for crowd control on the banks of the Rio Grande have incensed Democratic lawmakers, some of whom drew a connection to white supremacy and slavery.

“Haitian lives are Black lives, and if we truly believe that Black lives matter, then we must reverse course,” Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said at a news conference Wednesday.

Pressley also called on the Biden administration to “immediately and indefinitely” stop the removal of Haitian nationals back to Haiti. Democrats and immigrant advocates remain concerned that the administration’s rapid removal of migrants from the border has limited their access to humanitarian protections outlined under the law.

Homeland Security official said Thursday the removals would continue.

Law enforcement agencies across the country use mounted patrols on a regular basis to traverse rough terrain, including in remote areas of the border that don’t have paved roads.

While many were disturbed by what appeared to be aggressive behavior by the agents on horseback, Border Patrol agents who spoke to ABC News said their colleagues in the controversial photographs were following procedures. They said it’s common practice for agents on horseback to use “long reins” to control the horse, apparently leading a photojournalist at the scene in Del Rio to describe them as “whips” being used by the agents.

Any use of whips, even on horses, would be out of line with agency policy, Border Patrol Agent and Union Vice President Jon Anfinsen told ABC News.

“These agents are highly trained along with their horses and they were doing exactly what they were trained to do,” Anfinsen said.

About 4,000 migrants remain at the camp and the officials estimated that about two-thirds of the entire group that gathered in Del Rio were families.

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(EUROPE) — Lawmakers in Europe on Thursday unveiled a proposal to force smartphone makers to adopt a universal, brand-agnostic charging cable in an effort to reduce electronic waste.

The plans call for a USB-C cable to become the universal standard for all smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. While years of collaborating with the industry on a voluntary approach have brought the number of mobile charger types from 30 to 3 within the last decade, according to a statement from the European Commission, the new legislation would establish a single common charging solution.

Apple, with its proprietary Lightning cables, remains one of the major holdouts to have a unique charger for its devices — though some of its more recent devices do include USB-C charging. The company has previously argued that the proposal would impede innovation.

“Chargers power all our most essential electronic devices,” Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, said in a statement. “With more and more devices, more and more chargers are sold that are not interchangeable or not necessary. We are putting an end to that.”

“With our proposal, European consumers will be able to use a single charger for all their portable electronics — an important step to increase convenience and reduce waste,” Breton added.

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president for the digital age, added that consumers have been “frustrated long enough about incompatible chargers piling up in their drawers.”

“We gave industry plenty of time to come up with their own solutions, now time is ripe for legislative action for a common charger,” Vestager said in a statement Thursday. “This is an important win for our consumers and environment and in line with our green and digital ambitions.”

Some 420 million mobile phones and other portable electronic devices were sold in the European Union in 2020, the lawmakers said, and consumers on average own about three mobile chargers but only use two on a regular basis. The group estimates disposed of and unused chargers pile up to some 11,000 metric tons of waste each year.

The Commission also seeks to unbundle the sale of chargers from the sale of electronic devices in order to reduce the environmental footprint associated with the production and disposal of chargers. It also is asking producers to provide clearer information about charging performance, including how much power is required by a device for charging.

The lawmakers estimate that all together the new measures will help consumers in Europe limit the number of new chargers purchased and save nearly $294 million (€250 million) per year on unnecessary charger purchases.

Apple told ABC News that it is continuing to work with the European Commission to understand the full details of the proposal, but argued that the legislation could disrupt a thriving ecosystem, inconvenience users and actually create electronic waste.

“Apple stands for innovation and deeply cares about the customer experience. Some of the most innovative thinking at Apple goes toward building products with recycled and renewable materials,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement. “We share the European Commission’s commitment to protecting the environment and are already carbon neutral for all of our corporate emissions worldwide, and by 2030 every single Apple device and its usage will be carbon neutral.”

“We remain concerned that strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world,” the statement added. “We look forward to continued engagement with stakeholders to help find a solution that protects consumer interest, as well as the industry’s ability to innovate and bring exciting new technology to users.”

The U.S.-headquartered company also noted that the European Commission previously sought to mandate that all smartphones only use USB Micro-B connectors, which would have restricted the advancement to Lightning and USB Type-C chargers.

The proposal will next need to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council, and the lawmakers have proposed a transition period of two years — which Apple has called concerningly short — from the date of adoption to give the industry time to adapt.

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