International
Tackling hunger in Haiti, the arduous task of the World Food Program
In the Central Kitchen of the World Food Program (WFP) in the capital of Haiti, dozens of people work against the clock to fight hunger: some cut food, others cook in huge pots, some carry trays in vehicles to deliver them to the camps where thousands of families wait for that plate of food, sometimes the only one of the day.
One of those shelters is the Isidor Jean Louis School, in the center of Port-au-Prince, which has been welcoming 600 refugees for months after leaving their homes due to the violence of the armed gangs. There EFE accompanies the WFP.
One of those staying at that hostel is Elva Senfró, 85 years old. He has been there for months after fleeing the neighborhood by his son in the middle of a cruel gang attack.
“The gang was attacking the neighborhood, burning the houses, and my son ran me out of the place and brought me to school, where I have been living for five months (…) I would like to eat something every day, but it is not like that, it is only possible when they bring me something,” this old woman tells EFE.
In Haiti, about five million people (almost half of the population) face acute food insecurity and, of them, 1.64 million face “emergency” levels, according to the data handled by WFP. They are the highest rates since the 2010 earthquake, which caused about 300,000 deaths.
In recent years, Haiti has experienced a steady increase in hunger, and the prevalence of acute food insecurity went from 35% in 2019 to almost 50% in 2024.
Something that the director of the WFP in Haiti, Jean-Martin Bauer, insists on in statements to EFE: “There are five million people who have difficulty getting food. They are people who don’t know what they are going to eat tomorrow, who don’t have money to know if they are going to eat the next day.”
Among the most affected areas is the Artibonite Valley, considered the country’s barn and where armed groups have seized agricultural land and stolen crops.
The department of the West, the rural areas of the south and several poor neighborhoods of the capital, such as Croix des Bouquets and Cité Soleil, with important hotbeds of hunger, are also a cause for concern.
“Artibonite is an area that produced a lot of food for the country and now they themselves have nothing to eat, due to the violence,” explains Bauer, who estimates that there are 3,000 producers who cannot cultivate the land and abandoned it due to the violence of the gangs.
Around two in the afternoon, the staff of the Center for Peasant Animation and Community Action (CAPAC), one of the local organizations with which the WFP works, arrive at the Isidor Jean Louis College.
It is an operation that they carry out daily: some quickly go to school and take the food to a room on the second floor, while others organize the refugees to proceed with the delivery of lunch.
The little ones lead the line, and they are followed by the elderly and pregnant women. They receive a tray of rice with fish and a bottle of water.
The rest of middle-aged people, between pushing and arguments, take a long time to organize to enter the room. When the food is already in his hands, everyone goes to the place of the school where he resides and eats in silence, enjoying every bite.
“The population wants security. People who go to church with the children, who go to school, who go to the market, are afraid and are leaving little because they don’t want to be kidnapped on the street. The population doesn’t deserve that, it deserves a better life,” says Bauer.
And he adds: “Those of us who work on the humanitarian issue would like to see freedom of movement on the street. If there is so much hunger, it’s because the producers can’t get to sell to the capital. We want to see the producers leave the Artibonite and enter the capital to sell their products. That they bring good food to the markets. That is the most important issue for the food system.”
International
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.
That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”
“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.
Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”
In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”
This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.
The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.
Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.
For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.
International
Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants
The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.
According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”
The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.
The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”
These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
International
Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”
“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.
“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.
Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.
“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.
The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.
Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.
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