The World and Everything in It - April 27, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The United Nations’ mission is to ensure international peace and security. It’s not been up to the task. Now there are renewed calls for change.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk about that on Washington Wednesday.

Also World Tour. Today, a special report on international persecution.

Plus families separated by war in Ukraine.

And road trips with the final destination in mind.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, April 27th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news with Kristen Flavin.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: NATO allies meet in Germany » Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin convened a meeting of U.S. allies at the Ramstein air base in Germany on Tuesday.

AUSTIN: It is an extraordinary gathering, with more than 40 countries represented here today. And we’re here to help Ukraine win the fight against Russia’s unjust invasion. And to build up Ukraine’s defenses for tomorrow’s challenges.

NATO countries have committed to send more than $5 billion dollars in military equipment to bolster Ukraine’s forces.

Many of those weapons have traveled through Poland en route to the front lines. And now Russia is retaliating by cutting off supplies of natural gas. Russian energy giant Gazprom announced it would stop gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria after they refused to pay in rubles.

Bulgarian officials said they were looking for alternative sources. But Poland said it was prepared for such a situation and did not fear any shortages.

Meanwhile, in Moscow…

PUTIN: [Speaking Russian]

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday. Putin said he still wanted to find a diplomatic solution. But Russian forces have not slowed their attacks in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

And for the second day in a row, explosions rocked the neighboring country of Moldova, sparking fears that the conflict could spread. Tuesday’s blasts took out two powerful radio antennas close to the Ukrainian border.

Attacks on the last pocket of resistance in the southern port city of Mariupol also continued Tuesday. Guterres urged Putin to allow civilians to leave the steel plant where they’ve taken shelter. But Putin claimed Ukrainian forces are using civilians as human shields and won’t let them go.

States argue for Remain in Mexico policy at the Supreme Court » The Biden administration made its case at the Supreme Court Tuesday for ending the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy. Under the rule, asylum-seekers are required to stay outside the country while courts consider their claims.

Lawyers for Texas and Missouri argued to keep the program. Ken Paxton is the Texas attorney general.

PAXTON: And we're arguing that the Biden administration, just like the rest of us, have to follow federal law. They either have to detain them or send them back to their country of origin. It's a very simple argument…

The administration argues the president has the right to end a program enacted by his predecessor. But the United States does not have the capacity to detain everyone who applies for asylum. And that means many immigrants are allowed in without a full vetting.

Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt say that violates a congressional order not to release immigrants into the country.

Judge blocks plan to end pandemic immigration restrictions » During a Senate subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said some of the president’s Justice Department budget would go toward relieving the overburdened immigration system.

GARLAND: This includes $1.35 billion for the Executive Office for Immigration Review to reduce the immigration court backlog by hiring more than 1,200 new staff including approximately 200 immigration judge teams.

The Biden administration has faced widespread criticism for failing to manage a surge of migrants at the southern border during the last year. Nearly 8,000 migrants currently cross the southern border each day.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Louisiana temporarily blocked the government’s plan to end the pandemic-era policy known as Title 42. It allows border authorities to turn away migrants due to the public health crisis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the order is no longer necessary and plans to revoke it on May 23rd. But even members of the president’s own party oppose the move, saying it will cause an overwhelming surge of immigrants at the southern border.

Administration expands COVID treatment availability » Vice President Kamala Harris has tested positive for COVID-19. The White House announced the news on Tuesday.

Harris has no symptoms but will quarantine at home until she tests negative. White House officials say President Biden is not at risk. He last saw Harris on April 18th.

The vice president’s diagnosis comes as a new Omicron subvariant makes its way across the country, although with few serious consequences. Dr. Rochelle Walensky is director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WALENSKY: Cases also remain comparatively low to where we were even a month ago, at about 44,000 a day, though this too has represented an increase of about 25 percent in the past week.

Although the latest Omicron subvariant remains highly infectious, it’s not leading to nearly as many hospitalizations. That could be because so many Americans have already had the virus. According to new CDC research, three out of every four U.S. children and more than half of all Americans have had a previous infection.

Still, the Biden administration is stepping up efforts to distribute Pfizer’s COVID treatment to doctors and pharmacies. Limited supplies of Paxlovid prevented its widespread use during the winter Omicron surge. But health officials say the country now has plenty to go around.

Kim Jong Un touts nuclear weapons program » AUDIO: [Music and cheering from parade]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to increase his country’s nuclear weapons arsenal and use it if threatened.

Kim made the comments during a military parade held Monday.

KIM: [Speaking Korean]

Kim said the country had developed nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war. But he said he would not be afraid to use them if any forces tried to, quote “violate the fundamental interests of our state.”

The weapons rolled out during Monday’s parade included full-range intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. The military also showed off hypersonic missiles and a new type of ballistic missile designed to be fired from submarines.

North Korea has ramped up its military activity in the last year, completing 13 missile tests since January. Analysts have also detected signs it is rebuilding tunnels at a nuclear test site, possibly in preparation for detonating a nuclear device.

I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: veto power at the United Nations.

Plus, life on the open road. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday, April 27th and you’re listening to The WORLD and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time for Washington Wednesday.

Today, the UN Security Council and Washington’s role in it.

The Security Council is an arm of the United Nations. Its job is to try to ensure international peace and security.

The council has five countries with permanent seats and veto power over security council decisions. Those countries are Britain, France, China, Russia, and the United States.

Ten other member nations are elected to two-year terms.

EICHER: After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the vast majority of the Security Council’s 15 members voted to condemn the Russian aggression and demanded that it withdraw. But the vote didn’t really matter because Russia vetoed the resolution.

That hampered efforts by the UN to take a unified stand. In turn, that’s led to questions about the body’s effectiveness and what can be done to reform it.

Here now to talk about it is Ivana Stradner. She researches international law and security. She’s currently a research fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

REICHARD: And she joins us now. Ivana, good morning!

IVANA STRADNER, GUEST: Good morning.

REICHARD: Let’s note at the start the UN General Assembly did vote to condemn Russia and demand withdrawal and did so by a two-thirds majority. But again because of the Security Council, does that really matter? What did that accomplish?

STRADNER: The United Nations General Assembly is tremendously important in forum for diplomatic talk, but the United Nations General Assembly resolutions are not actually legally binding. So even though for diplomacy, such resolution matters a lot, it's very difficult to enforce. And you just mentioned earlier, indeed, because Russia is a permanent member at the United Nations Security Council, it will be very, very difficult to enforce any such resolutions within the United Nations Security Council.

REICHARD: A new resolution co-sponsored by the United States would require any country that uses its veto power to explain itself to the General Assembly. It wouldn’t change the vote, just perhaps make it a little more uncomfortable for the country holding things up. Good idea or bad idea?

STRADNER: I mean, let me tell you one thing in terms of the United Nations General Assembly: words matter. And such talks are tremendously important. But one thing is we have to ask ourselves whether Russia cares about reputation on the global stage or not, especially when stakes are high. So this is precisely—I'm not very hopeful that such United Nations General Assembly resolutions can alter the behavior of Russia.

Let me clarify one thing. Many people claim Russia is a realist. Putin is a realist. He does not care about international institutions. It's a big power. Well, that's not that's not entirely true, because Russia never wanted to leave any of those international organizations. On the contrary, Russia has been working very, very hard to be very active inside international organizations, and along with China, to change them. I mean, you just really have to, for example, take a look at what Russia and China are doing in terms of regulating information security inside the United Nations and how they're actually organizing the coalition of the willing with their allies to change international organizations. That really matters a lot. And after all, I mean, you also have the United Nations Human Rights Council where Russia was sitting and that was also very important for Russia to have a seat over there so it can control the narrative about awful human rights violations that have been happening on a daily basis inside Russia.

REICHARD: Are there other proposals to change the way the council works?

STRADNER: I mean, there are some people, for example, who refer to the fact that if you go back to the history of the United Nations, the language that was in the initial charter listed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as permanent member of the Council, it was not Russia back then. So some people, for example, claim that it's very, that we can actually install Ukraine instead of Russia, because it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, that included different republics other than Russia back then. So some people, for example, claimed that this is a legal, I don't want to call it a loophole, but this is one of the feasible ways that we can actually put Russia out (of) there because legally, it's very, very difficult, really, to remove Russia from the Security Council or the General Assembly Resolution, because it requires a recommendation from the Security Council. And because Russia is one of the permanent member states and has veto power, it can block any such resolution from being passed.

REICHARD: The United Nations does send peacekeeping forces to various parts of the world. But member nations aren’t bound to wait for UN approval before taking military action. And UN resolutions aren’t binding if a country chooses to reject them. So, what effect does the Security Council’s action or inaction really have on decisions being made in Washington?

STRADNER: To begin with, the United Nations Security Council resolutions are binding—unlike some of the United Nations General Assembly resolutions—and they really, I mean, they do have a tremendously important role. But let me just go back because we are currently living in some sort of a new Cold War. I don't like to call it like that, but it's a good analogy to what happened back during the Cold War, because back then, I mean, the United Nations was blocked. And that's something we are seeing right now. And the West really cares about maintaining international liberal order. We really need to also find a way to limit Russia's influence within the United Nations. Some people, you know, also fear that this may actually escalate further. I do not think, you know, that removing Russia from different United Nations bodies can actually escalate further conflict. But it can actually show that the West really cares about maintaining international liberal order.

REICHARD: Right now, Russia is using the veto power for its benefit. But Washington has also used vetoes to block measures it disagrees with. So, what effect could this new proposal have on U.S. foreign policy in the future?

STRADNER: Of course. Like Russia and China I mean, that's the purpose of great power politics, right? They can veto certain things through the United Nations when they don't serve their interests. We've done it in the past and probably will do it in the future. I really don't think that this can actually have any tremendous effect, like on how states behave when stakes are very, very high, such as during the wartime. And let me remind you also that we also waged wars without the authorization of the Security Council. I mean, just think about during the 90s or the 1999 NATO intervention. I mean, Russia was sitting there in China and we had to end the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. It was very, very difficult to pass such a resolution in the United Nations. So we decided to escape the United Nations system and to use force for the humanitarian purposes, actually justifying under the humanitarian intervention. If you go back even to 2014, Russia used the very similar reasoning for Ukraine. I mean, they refer to something similar to the Responsibility to Protect and why they did not resort to the United Nations. I mean, if you even hear how Russia is justifying, legally, this war, they are using tools such as self-defense. And let me remind you and our audience, that there are two ways that you can wage basically, to put it simply, legal wars, according to the United Nations. Either you can justify it under self defense, or you need the authorization of the Security Council.

REICHARD: Final question, Ivana: It appears that so far, Russia can act with impunity. The UN seems unable to do anything about it. Could this be a tipping point, in terms of the UN’s influence?

STRADNER: First of all, this is not the first war that Russia has waged without the authorization of the Security Council or of the United Nations. I mean, you really just have to think about what Russia did in Georgia or in Ukraine in 2014, let alone awful atrocities in Syria in terms of international humanitarian law. So I have to be really blunt here and to say whoever really thinks that the United Nations can stop the wars, especially among big powers, I'm afraid that it's up for disappointment. So I really don't think the United Nations can constrain the behavior of Vladimir Putin. But it is tremendously important to keep and to maintain the United Nations importance for historical reasons. I mean, just the United Nation resolution really emphasizes perfectly Russian atrocities and this is very important for the future of international liberal order as it is and the second thing for the historical reasons to keep Russia at least morally accountable.

REICHARD: Ivana Stradner is an expert on international law and security, currently a research fellow with the American Enterprise Institute. Ivana, thank you.

STRADNER: My pleasure.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour.

Every year the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports on persecution around the world. This year’s edition came out Monday.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: The independent and bipartisan commission highlights religious suppression and advises the U.S. government on how to respond.

Here’s WORLD’s Africa reporter, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: In 2001, just before the ouster of the Taliban regime, the commission recommended the State Department designate Afghanistan as a country of particular concern, or CPC.

That was the last time the commission made that recommendation, until this year following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

Frederick Davies is one of the commission’s members.

DAVIES: Afghans who do not adhere to the Taliban’s harsh and strict interpretation of Sunni Islam and adherents of other faiths or belief continue to be at risk of grave danger. The one known Jew and most Hindus and Sikhs have fled the country, Christian converts, Baha’i, and Ahmadiyya Muslims practice their faith in hiding due to threats from the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.

The commission also recommended the State Department re-designate 10 countries that appeared on last year’s CPC list. They are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

This year, the commission wants to add four more countries to the list: India, Nigeria, Syria, and Vietnam.

Commissioners say India has implemented more Hindu nationalist policies in the past year. Those have affected Christians, Muslims, and other minorities. And restrictions on international funding for religious nonprofits has limited the work of groups like Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

Here’s Commissioner Anurima Bhargava.

BHARGAVA: There have been many attacks on religious communities across India of Christians, of Muslims, of Sikhs, of other religious minorities, and those attacks and the ways in which they have been either not addressed or facilitated by the government at different levels are also of significant concern to us at USCIRF.

Nigeria became the first democracy to join the CPC list in 2020, but the Biden administration withdrew that designation last year. The commission highlighted the ongoing persecution of Christians in the north and central parts of the country as evidence for renewing the CPC designation. This month, a court in northern Kano state sentenced Mubarak Bala, a humanist, to 24 years in prison on blasphemy charges.

Nadine Maenza is the commission’s chair.

MAENZA: In fact, central government failure, state government-level repression, religious motivated violence by non-state actors have turned parts of Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country of approximately 200 million people, into a hotbed of persecution, particularly in the north.

The commission has also listed nine countries under its special watch list. They include the Central African Republic. It did not appear in last year’s report after making some strides. But the commission said it had records of targeted abductions, torture, and killings of Muslims last year.

The annual report also takes note of terror groups that target and attack people because of their religion.

The pandemic played a big role in last year’s report. And this year, commissioners said it’s still affecting religious freedom in some countries, like Algeria. Authorities there stopped Christians from reopening their churches even as some mosques resumed under social distancing guidelines.

In other nations like Sudan and Belarus, commissioners noted that political unrest has sparked religious freedom violations. They added that religious intolerance also grew over the past year in Europe, where they recorded more cases of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

DAVIES: The recommendation is that the U.S. government continue to engage European governments around these issues.

The commission welcomed some progress in securing religious freedom globally, including the January appointment of Rashad Hussain as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom. And Commissioner Frederick Davies said more countries are also beginning to engage on the issue of blasphemy laws.

DAVIES: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is working with the U.S. government to ensure that the U.S. government engages countries around removing restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, or no belief, and particularly onerous blasphemy laws and laws that call for the death of certain people in the name of religion.

That’s it for this week’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, April 27th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: separated by war.

BBC: After months of preparations, the Russian president Vladimir Putin has launched a major military operation against Ukraine…

Two months have passed since Russia first invaded Ukraine, sending many refugees to border countries. But some left long before the invasion and are watching what’s happening with a growing sense of helplessness.

REICHARD: WORLD correspondent Caleb Bailey recently spoke to a family in Minnesota who fear for loved ones they left behind.

CALEB BAILEY, CORRESPONDENT : In Austin, Minnesota, Esther Zdebko plays with her two sons while they wait for her husband Valera to get home from English class.

ZBEDKO: Sorry. Okay. Crazy morning. We have Benjamin is 2 and then we have Lewis who's 10 months, but he's napping right now.

Even as Esther apologizes for the background noise, it's peaceful compared to what her close friends and family are experiencing 5,000 miles away.

ZBEDKO: And we had been thinking in about five years to go back to Ukraine permanently, but now with the war we don't really know what's going to happen going forward. We have no idea if Ukraine will even be a country.

Esther first visited Ukraine during college in 2011. She lived with a family who housed foster children. When she came back to America, the love for that ministry remained, and so she moved back.

ZBEDKO: And that's where I met my husband. He was on the Ukrainian team.

Esther and Valera married shortly after that and continued to work with orphanages and foster families. As a boy Valera and his siblings were taken away from their mom—making him a perfect candidate to mentor these young orphans alongside his wife.

In 2019, the couple moved to America to raise their family. The pandemic hit the next year. They haven’t been able to return to Ukraine since.

Valera is making a new life for his family in America. Part of that involves learning English. But the news from home makes it difficult to adjust.

ZBEDKO: His nephew stayed with our brother-in-law because he wanted to stay behind and there was a bomb dropped across the street from them and took out three houses. And all their windows were shattered and part of their roof. But their house is still standing.

While Valera is grateful that his wife and kids are safe from bombs and terror, he can’t say the same for his friends and family in Ukraine.

NEWSCAST: Explosions rang out before dawn in the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa, followed by air sirens…

ZBEDKO: We feel a little bit guilty, kind of like that survivor's guilt or whatever, because we weren't there and we aren't there. And we're safe, and a lot of people aren't safe.

It’s nearly impossible to not think about the suffering of those friends and family. And yet, Esther and Valera have daily concerns they must attend to.

ZBEDKO: And yeah, I think one thing I just have to somehow keep coming back to is that I have to be in the place and be present, where God has called me to be right now. And I mean, part of that is staying connected with Ukraine, but part of it is I have to be present for my own kids, because they're not living through a war. So I shouldn't make them live through it. If you know what I mean.

NEWSCAST: It is a city without water. Without access to food. Without communications. Without power. A city reduced to ruins by constant Russian bombardment…

In the face of discouraging reports on every news channel, Esther recalls the uplifting stories her family has shared. Little glimmers of hope in a desolate situation.

ZBEDKO: So like, there are those who are receiving the refugees and there are those who are going out and getting them. So yeah, it's crazy, but they're nonstop driving. I don't know if they ever sleep. Like one of them. They still told us their vans broke down because they had been driving nonstop for seven weeks or something like the vans never got a break and finally they just died. So it gave the drivers a break to hopefully they were the ones who had to fix the vans themselves.

NEWSCLIP: Refugee agencies are warning that millions of Ukrainians could be on the move to escape the fighting…

Churches are on the front lines taking refugees under their wings. Feeding, housing, and encouraging homeless and despondent citizens.

ZBEDKO: There's one church that I saw pictures of that. I've known it as, like the most beautiful church in our city where everybody has their weddings, because it's just like, really, really fancy. And now I've seen pictures of it. Like that's the wedding hall where everybody has their weddings, and now it's full of supplies to help people fleeing the country.

Others are taking church into the war-torn streets. One friend of the Zdebkos is a chaplain in the Ukrainian army and is dodging Russian surveillance to spread the good news.

ZBEDKO: And he's been going to the bomb shelters every night and preaching the gospel in the bomb shelters, because people can listen because they're all scared for their lives. And so that's what he's been doing. His his wife is exhausted, because she doesn't know if he's ever going to come home.

Esther says Christians worldwide can learn a lot from their brothers and sisters in Ukraine and neighboring countries. War, famine, sickness—all these trials present a great opportunity for the gospel.

ZBEDKO: The church's job and calling is to meet the needs in the present situation where we are located right now. Which means if there's a war in your country, and there are refugees coming in, you feed the refugees. If there is something else going on in your community, it's the church's job to step up and take care of it.

Reporting for World, I’m Caleb Bailey.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, April 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on the joys of the open road.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: A question posed on Twitter: What’s the worst 300-mile drive in the United States?

I had to think about that. While growing up, the appeal of “See the USA in your Chevrolet” was lost on me. I dreaded road trips, crammed into the back seat with two sisters and sometimes an additional cousin, fighting over space and potato chips. Our usual vacation destination was Eureka Springs, Arkansas where my grandparents moved when I was 10: an eight-hour drive from Dallas, with the same landmarks and stops and the same endless final hour.

Then I married a man with a 1962 VW Bug and an itch to travel. Our honeymoon was a road trip from west Texas through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, hitting every national park along the way. The road looks different from the front seat, with Rand McNally in your lap and a widescreen view of the Great American West rolling before your eyes.

That was just the beginning: California here we come, Georgia on our minds, waltzing through Tennessee, way down yonder to New Orleans. The award for most scenic would probably go to our drive from Vancouver USA to Vancouver, Canada, with a ferry excursion to Vancouver Island in between. The quirkiest trip happened when our little VW broke down for good sometime after midnight in eastern Oklahoma and we were picked up by a trucker hauling chickens. Our longest trip ran from Trenton, New Jersey to northern New Mexico, in a 1963 Ferrari purchased by a friend who didn’t have time to fetch the car himself. We hit all the home ports and tourist attractions along the way and picked up one speeding ticket in Kentucky.

What sights we’ve seen. What fellow travelers we’ve met. What vehicles we’ve driven the socks off of.

I’ve mourned with those who mourn the horrible consequences of a fiery automobile crash. And yet. Imagine the freedom that previous generations couldn’t fathom. Once the Lord gave us a garden; now he gives us an open road and a scrolling landscape. In this life, every pleasure comes with problems, such as DUI’s and crumpled pileups. But also unexpected joys.

About the worst 300 miles. A clear favorite with respondents on that Twitter thread was I-80 through Nebraska. Personally, I like those wide, clean vistas that go on and on. My vote for the worst might be I-79 through West Virginia. We only drove it once, an endless replay of ascents, descents, tight curves, passing lanes, and surprisingly few scenic overlooks. After a few hours we just wanted to get out of there.

My road-tripping days are over for now; my husband got over them years ago. But “in our hearts are the highways to Zion” (Ps. 84:12). We’ve lived the metaphor, and our destination is in view.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: semiconductors. We’ll tell you about the effort to boost U.S. production of these important components.

And we’ll hear about a case challenging military dress codes on first amendment grounds.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

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Go now in grace and peace.

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