International
Haiti, in a deadlock, waiting for a transitional government
The situation in Haiti remains at a standstill, a month after the escalation of chaos and violence began and the council that must lead the transition in the country, where elections have not been held for almost eight years, has not yet been established.
For a month, the impoverished Caribbean nation has been experiencing an escalation of violence at the hands of the armed gangs, who joined forces to demand the resignation of the Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, and who on March 2, in the midst of chaos and horror, attacked two of the main prisons, from which about 3,600 inmats would have fled, many of them bandits known for their extreme cruelty.
The seriousness of the events, which have forced the closure of schools, hospitals and airports, led the authorities to declare the curfew in the department of the West, where the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is located, and where a state of emergency has also been in force since then.
All this happened in the absence of Henry, who was then visiting Kenya to agree to send the multinational security support mission that Haiti awaits and whose deployment is also paralyzed.
Ariel Henry, who took office in June 2021 after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, has not been able to return to his country and is currently in the United States after several days stranded in Puerto Rico, from where on March 12 he agreed to resign to give way to a transitional government in Haiti, where elections have not been held since November 2017 when the failed ruler was elected.
However, three weeks after its formation was reported, the Presidential Council, in charge of carrying out the transition, still does not carry out its official inauguration, which, as agreed, will be followed by the appointment of a prime minister, with whom it will form a Government of National Unity.
Once this institution is implemented, Henry will leave power in the impoverished nation whose situation, according to the UN, is a “cataclysm” with more than 1,500 deaths at the hands of armed groups so far this year.
In its first communication, issued this week, the council promised stability and return the country to the path of democratic legitimacy and dignity.
Although the situation is stagnant, violent acts continue to be reported, although to a lesser extent than at the beginning of the month, while countries continue to evacuate their citizens.
Precisely this same Sunday, local media reported shots when a French Navy helicopter evacuated citizens of the European nation, although no one was injured.
Likewise, it was reported that two men were lynched by a mob that took them out of a police detachment, which had previously arrested them when they were supposed to buy weapons for the gangs.
The events occurred in the town of Mirebalais and, according to the Police, the two men had with them the equivalent of more than 50,000 dollars, which were presumed to buy weapons and ammunition.
The dead were identified as Alexandre Ananel, a police officer; and Musca Michelet, a security officer of the Provisional Electoral Council.
Meanwhile, one of the latest kidnappings that is known is that of the American YouTuber of Lebanese origin Addison Pierre Maalouf, who, according to several reports, traveled to Haiti to interview the powerful leader of armed gangs in Haiti Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue.
After several days kidnapped, the man was released on Saturday, as he himself announced on social media.
All this happens in a country with an economy that continues to plummet after the contraction of GDP last year, of 1.8% compared to 1.7% in 2022, and in which 5.5 million people, half of its population, need humanitarian aid.
International
The United States accuses Russia of using chemical weapons against Ukraine
The U.S. State Department determined that Russia has used chemical weapons against Ukraine with agents that constitute a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CAQ) and will impose sanctions on those responsible.
The United States determined that Russia has used chloropicrin, a pesticide used as a suffocating gas in World War I and banned internationally. He has used it in Ukraine to force the departure of troops from fortified positions.
For this reason, the United States has imposed new sanctions on individuals and organizations related to this use of chemical weapons.
“We make this determination, in addition to our conclusion that Russia has used riot control agents as a method of war in Ukraine, also a violation of the CAQ,” the State Department said.
The United States considers that the use of this chemical armament is not isolated and “is probably driven by the desire of the Russian forces to expel Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical advances on the battlefield.”
The Treasury and State Departments sanctioned two people, six Russian entities and four companies. All associated with Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs.
Chloropicrin is used as a tear agent, but it is prohibited in armed conflicts. In a trench war you can’t escape its effects and you can suffocate.
International
Trump promises the largest deportation of migrants in history, “they are going to destroy the country”
The former president of the United States and Republican pre-candidate Donald Trump promised to carry out the “highest deportation” of migrants in the country’s history if he returns to the White House after the elections on November 5, because “they are going to destroy the country.”
“Allowing the entry through the southern border of millions and millions of people, many of them very bad, is not sustainable. They are going to destroy the country. We are going to do the biggest deportation in history. We have no other choice,” he said at a campaign rally in Waukesha, in the key state of Wisconsin.
The former president once again accused his rival, Democratic President Joe Biden, of having applied an open border policy during the last four years that has resulted in an “invasion” of migrants.
Trump made these statements a day after an interview with Time magazine was published in which he detailed that he plans to deploy the Army to persecute and detain undocumented migrants if he wins the elections.
In the same interview, he did not rule out the possibility of building new migrant detention camps. Although he did not point it out as a priority since his plan is to deport them quickly.
Trump, who won the elections in 2016 after promising to build a wall on the border with Mexico, has put migration back at the center of his campaign, which has become one of the issues of greatest concern for voters.
The Republican took advantage of a pause in the open criminal trial he has in New York to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan. Places where he is practically tied with Biden in the polls.
The New York tycoon already visited these two states in the midwest of the country in April and then also insisted on the issue of migration, since he accused the current president of having caused a “bloodbath at the border.”
The Biden Administration annulled Trump’s policy that facilitated the return of hot migrants. It launched humanitarian permit programs for people from several countries, while restricting asylum applications at the border.
More than two million people were arrested last year when crossing the southern border of the United States irregularly.
International
‘Gaby’ Carrizo, the unpopular ruling presidential candidate for the Presidency of Panama
José Gabriel Carrizo, the current Panamanian vice president, better known as ‘Gaby’, aspires to the historic Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) to lead Panama again for another five years after next Sunday’s elections, in which he participates with low popularity rates.
Carrizo, the ruling party’s candidate for the Presidency in conjunction with the Molinera party, and who this Wednesday closes his campaign in Panama City, is at the queue of the polls among the five candidates with options, although the strong base of the PRD in the country, the party of the iconic general Omar Torrijos, cannot be underestimated.
The polls that ‘Gaby’ does lead are those of rejection, with between 50% and 60% of the participants in some surveys who assured that they would “never” vote for him.
“Don’t eat a story (…) we are going to win the elections in a forceful way,” Carrizo said on Wednesday at the closing ceremony of the campaign before a mass of members of the PRD, and assured that the polls “really that they do not want to publish” predict that triumph.
A lawyer by profession, he has been a member of the majority party of Panama since 2007 and in 2019 he became the youngest vice president in Panamanian history at just 36 years old, after Laurentino Cortizo won that year’s elections.
‘Gaby’, 40, has had a lot of visibility within the Executive, which has led to it being popularly pointed out as one of the main faces behind the different scandals that have enveloped the current Government since its inception and that increased with the COVID-19 pandemic.
That year, Carrizo defended the transparent management of the $1,457 million approved during 2020 to combat the pandemic in Panama.
Carrizo has also had a step run over by the presidential debates or during interviews with some media, when making mistakes when explaining his proposals, defending for example that “Panama is safer than France” or that they want to “pass Panama from the first world to the third world.”
This triggered a wave of jokes on social networks that the same candidate used in his favor to campaign with humor, a tone of his political strategy.
In the third and final debate he made the decision not to participate, arguing that José Raúl Mulino, candidate who leads the polls for the Realizing Goals party and substitute for the disabled former President Ricardo Martinelli (2009 – 2014), did not join the debate, as he had not done in the previous ones.
“In the case of the vice president candidate, I think he was looking for an excuse not to come because the last interventions have really been disastrous for him,” José Blandón, the running mate for vice president of Rómulo Roux of Democratic Change, told EFE after the debate.
The youngest of the eight candidates for the Presidency, starts with his main proposal to reduce the working week by maintaining 40 hours in fewer days, a system similar to the one already implemented in some European countries: “Work four days, pound three,” he says on his advertising posters and social networks.
Carrizo has given continuous mass baths in the provinces of Panama during his campaign explaining his electoral promises, which include that cut in working days, salary increases – including for security groups -, free medicines and promotion of tourism, among others.
“When you ask how much 4×8 is (referring to the ruling you had in one of the debates by saying 40 and not 32) answer that there are a thousand sticks (tickets) for your pocket,” the candidate shouts eagerly in one of his videos.
The United States accuses Russia of using chemical weapons against Ukraine
Trump promises the largest deportation of migrants in history, “they are going to destroy the country”
‘Gaby’ Carrizo, the unpopular ruling presidential candidate for the Presidency of Panama
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