United Nations
FM to join global conf on South, Central Asia connectivity in Tashkent
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen will attend an international conference titled “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity - Challenges and Opportunities” which will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on July 15-16.
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev is hosting the global forum to strengthen regional connectivity in the context of the new open foreign policy strategy of Tashkent.
The idea is aimed at further deepening economic cooperation in Central Asia, with access to South Asia, which has historically been closely linked to this region in economic, social, cultural and civilizational dimensions.
Dr Momen will hold a meeting with the President of Uzbekistan during his stay there. “I’ll thank the President of Uzbekistan on behalf of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.”
The Foreign Minister will also hold a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the conference, including meetings with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr Jaishankar, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Read: FM reassures on adequate vaccine supply from multiple sources
Dr Momen said he will discuss vaccine and Rohingya issues during his engagements in Tashkent. “Repatriation remains our number one priority. We’ll seek additional efforts.”
He said China will give 10 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine as a gift to Bangladesh and he will discuss vaccine issues during his meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister. “This is also very good news.”
Dr Momen said Bangladesh is a leader in terms of seeking wider connectivity and he will discuss with the Civil Aviation Minister of Uzbekistan to introduce direct Dhaka-Tashkent flight.
The Foreign Minister is scheduled to leave Dhaka for Tashkent around 6:35am on Wednesday as part of his five-day visit, a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told UNB. The Foreign Minister will return home on Monday (July 19) morning.
Read: Dhaka to host World Peace Conference Dec 4-5: FM
Conference Highlights
The conference will be attended by the President of Uzbekistan, the President of Afghanistan, foreign ministers and high-profile representatives of the central and south Asian countries, other foreign states, heads of authoritative international and regional organizations, global financial institutions and companies, leading research and analytical centres.
The high-level international conference is intended to form a political and expert platform for multilateral discussion of the mutually beneficial strategic model - Central Asia - South Asia -in transport and logistics, energy, trade, industry, investment, technological, cultural and humanitarian domains.
The conference will consist of an opening ceremony, a plenary session, three breakout sessions and a final part.
The conference will be attended by more than 250 participants from over 40 countries and international organizations who have confirmed their participation.
Read: FM mourns loss of lives in Japan’s Atami
The opening ceremony of the International Institute of Central Asia (IICA) will take place in Tashkent on July 15 which will be attended by the ministers of foreign affairs of the Central Asian states and experts.
On July 16, the conference will start by the plenary session on Central and South Asia: Regional connectivity. During the meeting, Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres and the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, as well as the heads of state and government, and ministers of foreign affairs and international financial organizations will deliver their speeches.
The session will also consider the state of affairs and prospects of interregional cooperation in Central and South Asia, successful examples of cooperation, promising interconnected infrastructure projects.
Mystery grows with key suspect in Haiti president killing
A physician. A church pastor. A failed Florida businessman who filed for bankruptcy.
New details that have emerged about a man considered a key player in the killing of Haiti’s president deepened the mystery over the assassination that shocked this nation of more than 11 million people as it faces an uncertain future.
Local authorities identified the suspect as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 62, a Haitian who once expressed a desire to lead his country in a YouTube video. However he is unknown in Haitian political circles, and associates suggested he was duped by those really behind the slaying of President Jovenel Moïse in an attack last week that critically wounded his wife, Martine.
A Florida friend of Sanon told The Associated Press the suspect is an evangelical Christian pastor and also is a licensed physician in Haiti, but not in the U.S. The associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of safety concerns, said Sanon told him he was approached by people claiming to represent the U.S. State and Justice departments who wanted to install him as president.
Read:Florida suspect in Haiti president killing deepens mystery
He said the plan was only for Moïse to be arrested, and Sanon would not have participated if he knew Moïse would be killed.
“I guarantee you that,” the associate said. “This was supposed to be a mission to save Haiti from hell, with support from the U.S. government.”
Echoing those sentiments was the Rev. Larry Caldwell, a Florida pastor, who said he worked with Sanon setting up churches and medical clinics in Haiti in 2000-2010. He doesn’t believe Sanon would have been involved in violence.
“I know the character of the man,” Caldwell said. “You take a man like that and you’re then going to say he participated in a brutal crime of murder, knowing that being associated with that would send him to the pits of hell? ... If there was one man who would be willing to stand in the breach to help his country, it would be Christian.”
Haiti’s National Police chief, Léon Charles, said Moïse’s killers were protecting Sanon, whom he accused of working with those who plotted the assassination.
Charles said officers found a hat with the logo of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence, among other things, in Sanon’s house in Haiti.
Twenty-six former Colombian soldiers are suspected in the killing, and 23 have been arrested, along with three Haitians. Charles said five suspects are still at large and at least three have been killed.
A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official told AP that one of the suspects in Moïse’s assassination was at times a confidential source to the agency, and that the suspect reached out to his contacts at the DEA after the killing and was urged to surrender. The official said the DEA and a U.S. State Department official provided information to Haiti’s government that led to the surrender and arrest of one suspect and one other individual, whom it didn’t identify.
Meanwhile, Colombia’s national police chief, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, said that a Florida-based enterprise, CTU Security, used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for Colombian suspects. Most arrived in the Dominican Republic in June and moved into Haiti within weeks, Vargas said.
He said Dimitri Hérard, head of general security at Haiti’s National Palace, flew to Colombia, Ecuador and Panama in the months before the assassination, and Colombian police are investigating whether he had any role in recruiting the mercenaries. In Haiti, prosecutors are seeking to interrogate Hérard as part of the assassination investigation.
Charles said that Sanon was in contact with CTU Security and that the company recruited the suspects in the killing. He said Sanon flew into Haiti in June on a private jet accompanied by several of the alleged gunmen.
The suspects were told their job was to protect Sanon, but they were later ordered to arrest the president, Charles said.
Charles said that after Moïse was killed, one suspect called Sanon, who got in touch with two people believed to be masterminds of the plot. He did not identify the masterminds or say if police know who they are.
Read: Haitian arrested as alleged tie to assassination masterminds
Sanon’s associate said he attended a recent meeting in Florida with Sanon and about a dozen other people, including Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera, a Venezuelan émigré to Miami who runs CTU Security. He said a presentation was made for rebuilding Haiti, including its water system, converting trash into energy and fixing roads.
He said Sanon asked why the security team accompanying him to Haiti were all Colombians. Sanon was told that Haitians couldn’t be trusted and that the system is corrupt, the associate said. He said Sanon called him from Haiti a few days before the assassination and said the Colombians had disappeared.
“I’m all by myself. Who are these people? I don’t know what they are doing,” the associate quoted Sanon as saying.
Sanon “is completely gullible,” the associate added. “He thinks God is going to save everything.”
Sanon has lived in Kansas City, Missouri and in Florida, where he filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and identified himself as a medical doctor in a YouTube video titled “Leadership for Haiti” in which he denounced the country’s leadership as corrupt and accused them of stripping the country’s resources.
However, records show Sanon has never been licensed to practice medicine or any other occupation covered by Florida’s Department of Health.
Sanon said in court papers filed in his 2013 bankruptcy case that he was a physician and a pastor at the Tabarre Evangelical Tabernacle in Haiti. He said he had stakes in enterprises including the Organization of Rome Haiti, which he identified as a non-governmental group, a radio station in Haiti and medical facilities in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
At the time of his bankruptcy, he and his wife reported income of $5,000 per month, and a home in Brandon, Florida, valued at about $143,000, with a mortgage of more than $367,000. A federal bankruptcy trustee later determined they hid ownership of about 35 acres in Haiti from creditors.
Florida records show Sanon started about a dozen businesses over the last 20 years, all of which failed, including ones that appeared related to medical imaging, physical therapy, fossil fuel trading, real estate and veganism.
Sanon’s arrest comes as a growing number of politicians have challenged interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who is currently in charge of Haiti with backing from police and the military.
U.S. officials, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, met Sunday with Joseph, designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, whom supporters have named as provisional president in a challenge to Joseph, according to the White House National Security Council.
The delegation also met with Haiti’s National Police and reviewed the security of critical infrastructure, it said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the delegation received a request for additional assistance. She said deployment of U.S. troops remained “under review,” but also suggested that Haiti’s political uncertainty was a complicating factor.
Read: Gangs complicate Haiti effort to recover from assassination
“What was clear from their trip is that there is a lack of clarity about the future of political leadership,” Psaki said.
U.S. President Joe Biden said he was closely following developments, adding: “The people of Haiti deserve peace and security, and Haiti’s political leaders need to come together for the good of their country.”
Meanwhile, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Haiti’s request for security assistance is being examined.
The United Nations has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990, but the last U.N. military peacekeepers left the country in 2017.
Immunized but banned: EU says not all COVID vaccines equal
After Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor and his wife received two doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine in Nigeria, they assumed they would be free to travel this summer to a European destination of their choice. They were wrong.
The couple — and millions of other people who have been vaccinated through a U.N.-backed effort — could find themselves barred from entering many European and other countries because those nations don’t recognize the Indian-made version of the vaccine for travel.
Although AstraZeneca vaccine produced in Europe has been authorized by the continent’s drug regulatory agency, the same shot manufactured in India hasn’t been given the green light.
EU regulators said AstraZeneca hasn’t completed the necessary paperwork on the Indian factory, including details on its production practices and quality control standards.
Read:FDA adds warning about rare reaction to J&J COVID-19 vaccine
But some experts describe the EU move as discriminatory and unscientific, pointing out that the World Health Organization has inspected and approved the factory. Health officials say the situation won’t only complicate travel and frustrate fragile economies but also undermine vaccine confidence by appearing to label some shots substandard.
As vaccination coverage rises across Europe and other rich countries, authorities anxious to salvage the summer tourism season are increasingly relaxing coronavirus border restrictions.
Earlier this month, the European Union introduced its digital COVID-19 certificate, which allows EU residents to move freely in the 27-nation bloc as long as they have been vaccinated with one of the four shots authorized by the European Medicines Agency, have a fresh negative test, or have proof they recently recovered from the virus.
While the U.S. and Britain remain largely closed to outside visitors, the EU certificate is seen as a potential model for travel in the COVID-19 era and a way to boost economies.
The officially EU-endorsed vaccines also include those made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. They don’t include the AstraZeneca shot made in India or many other vaccines used in developing countries, including those manufactured in China and Russia.
Individual EU countries are free to apply their own rules for travelers from inside and outside the bloc, and their rules vary widely, creating further confusion for tourists. Several EU countries, including Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, allow people to enter if they have had non-EU-endorsed vaccines; several others, including France and Italy, don’t.
For Nsofor, the realization he could be barred was “a rude awakening.” After a tough year of working during the pandemic in Abuja, Nsofor and his wife were looking forward to a European vacation with their two young daughters, perhaps admiring the Eiffel Tower in Paris or touring Salzburg in Austria.
Nsofor noted that the Indian-made vaccine he received had been authorized by WHO for emergency use and had been supplied through COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to provide shots to poor corners of the world. WHO’s approval included a visit to the Serum Institute of India factory to ensure that it had good manufacturing practices and that quality control standards were met.
“We’re grateful to the EU that they funded COVAX, but now they are essentially discriminating against a vaccine that they actively funded and promoted,” Nsofor said. “This will just give room to all kinds of conspiracy theories that the vaccines we’re getting in Africa are not as good as the ones they have for themselves in the West.”
Read: Pfizer to discuss vaccine booster with US officials Monday
Ivo Vlaev, a professor at Britain’s University of Warwick who advises the government on behavioral science during COVID-19, agreed that Western countries’ refusal to recognize vaccines used in poor countries could fuel mistrust.
“People who were already suspicious of vaccines will become even more suspicious,” Vlaev said. “They could also lose trust in public health messages from governments and be less willing to comply with COVID rules.”
Dr. Mesfin Teklu Tessema, director of health for the International Rescue Committee, said countries that have declined to recognize vaccines cleared by WHO are acting against the scientific evidence.
“Vaccines that have met WHO’s threshold should be accepted. Otherwise it looks like there’s an element of racism here,” he said.
WHO urged countries to recognize all of the vaccines it has authorized, including two Chinese-made ones. Countries that decline to do so are “undermining confidence in lifesaving vaccines that have already been shown to be safe and effective, affecting uptake of vaccines and potentially putting billions of people at risk,” the U.N. health agency said in a statement this month.
In June, the Serum Institute of India’s CEO, Adar Poonawalla, tweeted that he was concerned about vaccinated Indians facing problems traveling to the EU and said he was raising the problem at the highest levels with regulators and countries.
Stefan De Keersmaeker, a spokesman for the EU’s executive arm, said last week that regulators were obligated to check the production process at the Indian factory.
“We are not trying to create any doubts about this vaccine,” he said.
AstraZeneca said it only recently submitted the paperwork on the Indian factory to the EU drug regulatory agency. It didn’t say why it didn’t do so earlier, before the agency made its original decision in January.
Read: South Africa ramps up vaccine drive, too late for this surge
Public health experts warned that countries that decline to recognize vaccines backed by WHO are complicating global efforts to safely restart travel.
“You can’t just cut off countries from the rest of the world indefinitely,” said Dr. Raghib Ali of the University of Cambridge. “To exclude some people from certain countries because of the vaccine they’ve received is wholly inconsistent because we know that these approved vaccines are extremely protective.”
Nsofor said he and his wife are still deciding where to take their summer vacation and are leaning toward Singapore or East Africa.
“I didn’t realize there were so many layers to vaccine inequity,” he said.
Haitian arrested as alleged tie to assassination masterminds
The head of Haiti’s national police announced Sunday that officers arrested a Haitian man accused of flying into the country on a private jet and working with the masterminds and alleged assassins behind the killing of President Jovenel Moïse.
Police Chief Léon Charles identified the suspect as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, without giving any personal information about him, though it appears he has been living in Florida. The chief also gave no information on the purported masterminds.
Charles said the alleged killers were protecting Sanon as the supposed president of Haiti, adding that officers found several items at his house, including a hat emblazoned with the logo of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four automobile license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence with unidentified people.
“We continue to make strides,” Charles said of police efforts to solve the brazen attack early Wednesday at Moïse’s private home that killed the president and seriously wounded his wife, Martine Moïse, who was flown to Miami and remains hospitalized.
Read:'We need help': Haiti's interim leader requests US troops
Charles said a total of 26 Colombians are suspected in the killing of the president. Eighteen of them have been arrested, along with three Haitians. He said five of the suspects are still at large and at least three have been killed.
“They are dangerous individuals,” he said. “I’m talking commando, specialized commando.”
The chief said police are working with high-ranking Colombian officials to identify details of the alleged plot, including when the suspects left Colombia and who paid for their tickets.
Charles said Sanon was in contact with a firm that provides security for politicians and recruited the suspects, adding that the suspect flew into Haiti with them in early June. The men’s initial mission was to protect Sanon, but they later received a new one: arrest the president, the chief said.
“The operation started from there,” he said, adding that an additional 22 suspects joined the group and that contact was made with Haitian citizens.
Charles said that after Moïse was killed, one of the suspects phoned Sanon, who then got in touch with two people believed to be the intellectual authors of the plot. He did not identify the masterminds or say if police knew who they are.
The chief said Haitian authorities obtained the information from interrogations and other parts of the investigation.
It was not immediately clear if Sanon had an attorney.
Sanon has lived in Florida, in Broward County and in Hillsborough County on the Gulf Coast. Records show he has also lived in Kansas City, Missouri. He filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and identifies himself as a doctor in a video on YouTube titled “Leadership for Haiti.”
Read:2 US men, ex-Colombia soldiers held in Haiti assassination
In the video, he denounces the leaders of Haiti as corrupt, accusing them of stripping the country of its resources, saying that “they don’t care about the country, they don’t care about the people.”
He claims Haiti has uranium, oil and other resources that have been taken by government officials. “With me in power, you are going to have to tell me: ’What are you doing with my uranium? What are you doing with the oil that we have in the country? What are you going to do with the gold?’”
He also added: “This is a country with resources. Nine million people can’t be in poverty when we have so much resources in the country. It’s impossible. ... The world has to stop doing what they are doing right now. We can’t take it anymore. We need new leadership that will change the way of life.”
Sanon has posted little on Twitter but has expressed an interest in Haitian politics. In September 2010, he tweeted: “Just completed a successful conference in Port-Au-Prince. Many people from the opposition attended.” A month later, he wrote: “Back to Haiti for an important meeting regarding the election. Pray for me for protection and wisdom.”
The announcement of Sanon’s arrest was made hours after hundreds of Haitians sought solace in prayer at early Sunday church services as a political power struggle threatened to further destabilize their fragile country.
Roman Catholic and Protestant church leaders asked for calm and told people to remain strong as anxiety about the future grew, with authorities providing no answers or theories about who masterminded the killing by a group of gunmen early Wednesday at the president’s home. Martine Moïse, the president’s wife, was critically injured and was transported to Miami for treatment.
“Facing this situation, we will not be discouraged... You must stay and fight for peace,” Father Edwine Sainte-Louis said during a sermon broadcast on TV that included a small picture of Moïse with a banner that read: “Haiti will remember you.”
Prosecutors have requested that high-profile politicians including presidential candidate Reginald Boulos and former Haitian Senate President Youri Latortue meet officials for questioning as the investigation continues. Authorities also said they plan to interview at least two members of Moïse’s security detail.
Read: Haiti’s future uncertain after brazen slaying of president
Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph is currently leading Haiti with the help of the police and military, but he faces mounting challenges to his power.
Ariel Henry, whom Moïse designated as prime minister a day before he was killed, has said he believes he is the rightful prime minister, a claim also backed by a group of legislators who are members of Moïse’s Tet Kale party. That group also supports Joseph Lambert, head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, as the country’s provisional president.
Haiti, a country of more than 11 million people, currently has only 10 elected officials after it failed to hold parliamentary elections, leading Moïse to rule by decree for more than a year until his death.
While the streets were calm on Sunday, government officials worry about what lies ahead and have requested U.S. and U.N. military assistance.
“We still believe there is a path for chaos to happen,” Haiti Elections Minister Mathias Pierre told The Associated Press.
Pentagon chief spokesman John Kirby said on Fox News Sunday that the Pentagon is analyzing the request to send troops to Haiti and that no decisions have been made. He said a team, largely comprising agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, were heading down to Haiti “right now” to help with the investigation of the assassination.
’’I think that’s really where are our energies are best applied right now, in helping them get their arms around investigating this incident and figuring out who’s culpable, who’s responsible and how best to hold them accountable going forward,” Kirby said.
The United Nations has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990. The last U.N. peacekeeping mission arrived in 2004 and all military peacekeepers left the country in 2017. But a stabilization group stayed behind to train national police, help the government strengthen judicial and legal institutions and monitor human rights. That mission ended in 2019 and was replaced by a political mission headed by an American diplomat, Helen La Lime.
In addition to helping normalize the country, the U.N. peacekeeping force played an important role after a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people and after Hurricane Matthew in 2016. But U.N. troops from Nepal are widely blamed for inadvertently introducing cholera, which has afflicted over 800,000 people and killed more than 9,000 people since 2010. Some troops also have been implicated in sexual abuse, including of hungry young children.
Read:Haiti in upheaval: President Moïse assassinated at home
Laurent Dubois, a Haiti expert and Duke University professor, said questions over Moïse’s assassination could remain unanswered for a long time.
“There are so many potential players who could be behind it,” he said, adding that the political strength of Pierre, the interim prime minister, is an open question. “There is going to be some jockeying for positions of power. That is one big worry.”
In Port-au-Prince, resident Fritz Destin welcomed a priest’s sermon urging people not to be discouraged.
“The country needs a lot of prayers,” he said. “The violence makes life a little uncertain.″
Gangs complicate Haiti effort to recover from assassination
Gangs in Haiti have long been financed by powerful politicians and their allies — and many Haitians fear those backers may be losing control of the increasingly powerful armed groups who have driven thousands of people from their homes as they battle over territory, kill civilians and raid warehouses of food.
The escalation in gang violence threatens to complicate — and be aggravated by — political efforts to recover from last week’s brazen slaying of President Jovenel Moïse. Haiti’s government is in disarray; no parliament, no president, a dispute over who is prime minister, a weak police force. But the gangs seem more organized and powerful than ever.
While the violence has been centered in the capital of Port-au-Prince, it has affected life across Haiti, paralyzing the fragile economy, shuttering schools, overwhelming police and disrupting efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The country is transformed into a vast desert where wild animals engulf us,” said the Haitian Conference of the Religious in a recent statement decrying the spike in violent crime. “We are refugees and exiles in our own country.”
Read:'We need help': Haiti's interim leader requests US troops
Gangs recently have stolen tens of thousands of bags of sugar, rice and flour as well as ransacking and burning homes in the capital. That has driven thousands of people to seek shelter at churches, outdoor fields and a large gymnasium, where the government and international donors struggle to feed them and find long-term housing.
Those included dozens of disabled people who were forced to flee last month when gangs set fire to the encampment where they settled after being injured in the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
“I was running for my life in the camp on these crutches,” said 44-year-old Obas Woylky, who lost a leg in the quake. “Bullets were flying from different directions. ... All I was able to see was fire in the homes.”
He was among more than 350 people crammed into a school converted into a makeshift shelter where hardly anyone wore face masks against disease.
A cigarette dangled from the mouth of an older woman who washed clothes in a large bowl while a group of children took turns flicking a single blue marble. Nearby, a teenage girl crouched next to an elderly blind man sitting on the concrete floor and lifted a small bag of water to his mouth.
Experts say the violence is the worst they’ve seen since in roughly two decades — since before the creation of a second U.N. peacekeeping mission in 2004.
Programs aimed at reducing gang activity and an influx of aid following the earthquake helped quell some of the problem, but once that money dried up and aid programs shut down, gangs turned to kidnappings and extortion from businesses and neighborhoods they control.
Gangs are in part funded by powerful politicians, a practice recently denounced even by one of its reputed beneficiaries — Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer who heads a gang coalition known as G9 Family and Allies.
Read:2 US men, ex-Colombia soldiers held in Haiti assassination
He complained that the country is being held “hostage” by people he did not identify: “They reign supreme everywhere, distribute weapons to the populous quarters, playing the division card to establish their domination.”
Cherizier, known as “Barbecue,” has been linked to several massacres and his coalition is believed to be allied with Moïse’s right-wing party. He criticized those he called “bourgeois” and “exploiters,” adding: “We will use our weapons against them in favor of the Haitian people. ... We’re ready for war!”
Cherizier held a news conference on Saturday and called Moïse’s killing “cowardly and villainous,” saying that while many disagreed with him, “no one wanted this tragic outcome that will worsen the crisis and amplify political instability.”
He also issued a veiled warning: “We invite all those who are trying to take advantage of this coup to think carefully, to consider whether they have in their hands the appropriate solution to the country’s problems.”
Cherizier added that he and others will demand justice for Moïse: “We are just now warming up.”
G9 is one of at least 30 gangs that authorities believe control nearly half of Port-au-Prince. Their names range from “5 Seconds” — for how long it allegedly takes them to commit a crime — to “400 Mawozo” — which roughly translated means 400 lame men.
The epicenter of the recent gang violence is Martissant, a community in southern Port-au-Prince whose main road connects the capital to southern Haiti. Drivers’ fear of caught in a crossfire or worse has almost paralyzed commercial connections between the two regions, driving up prices, delaying the transportation of food and fuel and forcing international organizations to cancel programs including the distribution of cash to more than 30,000 people, according to a July 1 report by the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The agency said more than 1 million people need immediate humanitarian assistance and protection.
Read: Haiti’s future uncertain after brazen slaying of president
“Newly displaced people seek refuge in shelters every day,” it said, adding that hygiene there was “appalling.” Authorities worry about a spike in COVID-19 cases in a country that has yet to give a single vaccine.
“Escalating violence on an almost daily basis is expected to last for some time,” the agency said in a report.
The overall economy doesn’t help. The U.N. said the cost of a basic food basket rose by 13% in May compared with February, and that foreign direct investment fell by more than 70% from 2018 to 2020, dropping from $105 million to $30 million. That translates into fewer jobs and increased poverty in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day and 25% less than $1 a day.
Many also worry that the gangs could derail elections scheduled for September and November — a contest crucial to restoring functional legislative and executive branches now largely moribund in the wake of Moïse’s slaying.
But Haiti’s elections minister, Mathias Pierre, said Saturday that those backing the gangs may want to disrupt the elections. Such periods commonly see an upsurge in violence as groups try to use fear to nullify rivals’ advantages.
He said that wouldn’t work this time, noting that countries have held elections even during wars. “We need to organize elections. ...They need to back off.”
Haiti’s Office of the Protection of Citizens, a sort of ombudsman agency, has urged the international community to help Haiti’s National Police, which it said was “unable to respond effectively to the gangsterization of the country.”
Pierre said that lack of resources and weakness of Haiti’s police led the government to ask the United States and United Nations to send troops to help maintain order following Moïse’s killing: “We have a responsibility to avoid chaos.”
Read:Haiti in upheaval: President Moïse assassinated at home
Officials say they have been trying to boost the budget and manpower of a police force that now has about 9,000 operational officers for a country of more than 11 million people. Experts say it needs at least 30,000 officers to maintain control.
The government also is trying to figure out where to put people who have fled their homes due to violence, such as 43-year-old Marjorie Benoit, her husband and their three children.
Benoit, who lost an arm in the earthquake, said they fled as gunfire crackled around their neighborhood. She now also has lost her home and all their belongings.
“We have been uprooted,” she said, “and we don’t know where to start.”
Ensure reproductive health rights of all: UN chief
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged all to ensure the reproductive health rights of everyone, everywhere noting that resources for sexual and reproductive health services were diverted with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Read:FM greets UN chief Guterres on re-appointment
“As we mark World Population Day, let us pledge to ensure the reproductive health rights of everyone, everywhere,” he said in a message marking the World Population Day that falls on July 11.
Guterres said the Covid-19 pandemic continues to upend the world, reaching one grim milestone after another.
Read: Next 10 years final chance to avert climate catastrophe: UN chief
In addition to the millions of lives tragically lost, there has been a less visible toll: a shocking rise in domestic violence as women were forced into isolation with their abusers; empty maternity wards as women postponed motherhood; and unintended pregnancies due to curtailed access to contraceptive services, he said.
“Our latest estimates indicate that Covid-19 will push 47 million women and girls into extreme poverty. Many girls who are out of school may never return,” said the UN chief.
Read: Let's work together to defeat COVID-19: UN chief
In every corner of the world, he said, they are seeing a reversal of hard-won gains and an erosion of women’s reproductive rights, choices and agency. “These gaps in access to health rights are unacceptable. Women cannot be alone in this fight.”
Experts question if WHO should lead pandemic origins probe
As the World Health Organization draws up plans for the next phase of its probe of how the coronavirus pandemic started, an increasing number of scientists say the U.N. agency it isn’t up to the task and shouldn’t be the one to investigate.
Numerous experts, some with strong ties to WHO, say that political tensions between the U.S. and China make it impossible for an investigation by the agency to find credible answers.
They say what’s needed is a broad, independent analysis closer to what happened in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The first part of a joint WHO-China study of how COVID-19 started concluded in March that the virus probably jumped to humans from animals and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely.” The next phase might try to examine the first human cases in more detail or pinpoint the animals responsible — possibly bats, perhaps by way of some intermediate creature.
Read:UK health minister resigns after breaching coronavirus rules
But the idea that the pandemic somehow started in a laboratory — and perhaps involved an engineered virus — has gained traction recently, with President Joe Biden ordering a review of U.S. intelligence within 90 days to assess the possibility.
Earlier this month, WHO’s emergencies chief, Dr. Michael Ryan, said that the agency was working out the final details of the next phase of its probe and that because WHO works “by persuasion,” it lacks the power to compel China to cooperate.
Some said that is precisely why a WHO-led examination is doomed to fail.
“We will never find the origins relying on the World Health Organization,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University. “For a year and a half, they have been stonewalled by China, and it’s very clear they won’t get to the bottom of it.”
Gostin said the U.S. and other countries can either try to piece together what intelligence they have, revise international health laws to give WHO the powers it needs, or create some new entity to investigate.
Read:UK to donate 100 mn coronavirus vaccine doses
The first phase of WHO’s mission required getting China’s approval not only for the experts who traveled there but for their entire agenda and the report they ultimately produced.
Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, called it a “farce” and said that determining whether the virus jumped from animals or escaped from a lab is more than a scientific question and has political dimensions beyond WHO’s expertise.
The closest genetic relative to COVID-19 was previously discovered in a 2012 outbreak, after six miners fell sick with pneumonia after being exposed to infected bats in China’s Mojiang mine. In the past year, however, Chinese authorities sealed off the mine and confiscated samples from scientists while ordering locals not to talk to visiting journalists.
Although China initially pushed hard to look for the coronavirus’s origins, it pulled back abruptly in early 2020 as the virus overtook the globe. An Associated Press investigation last December found Beijing imposed restrictions on the publication of COVID-19 research, including mandatory review by central government officials.
Read:Rise in UK coronavirus cases stoke concerns over 3rd wave
Jamie Metzl, who sits on a WHO advisory group, has suggested along with colleagues the possibility of an alternative investigation set up by the Group of Seven industrialized nations.
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University, said the U.S. must be willing to subject its own scientists to a rigorous examination and recognize that they might be just as culpable as China.
“The U.S. was deeply involved in research at the laboratories in Wuhan,” Sachs said, referring to U.S. funding of controversial experiments and the search for animal viruses capable of triggering outbreaks.
“The idea that China was behaving badly is already the wrong premise for this investigation to start,” he said. “If lab work was somehow responsible (for the pandemic), the likelihood that it was both the U.S. and China working together on a scientific initiative is very high.”
Xi Jinping -- Leading CPC to strive for a better world
"What we Chinese Communists are doing is to better the lives of the Chinese people, rejuvenate the Chinese nation, and promote peace and development for humanity."
Addressing over 600 representatives of political parties from over 120 countries at a high-level dialogue in 2017, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and president of China, laid out the historic mission of the world's largest political party.
Read:Interview: CPC offers significant governance experience, says PCI leader
Committed to the party's original aspiration, Xi is leading the CPC not only to build China into a modern socialist country but to create a better shared future for the world.
DEVELOPMENT FOR ALL
A day before the official centenary of the CPC on Thursday, China, after a 70-year fight, was officially declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization, which marks the latest of the numerous achievements China has made under the CPC's leadership.
In February, Xi announced that China, with a population larger than 1.4 billion, had secured a complete victory against poverty, which was widely acclaimed as a miracle in the human history of poverty reduction.
While striving to improve the wellbeing of its own people, the CPC has also been committed to promoting the world's common development. In his 2017 New Year speech, Xi said the Chinese people "hope for a better life for people in other countries as well as for themselves." And he has been leading China to make that hope come true.
Whether in the fight against malaria or in poverty alleviation, China has over the past decades extended a helping hand to others, especially developing countries.
Back in 2000, Xi, then governor of southeastern China's Fujian Province, helped launch a pilot Juncao project to help improve the livelihood of the Papua New Guinean people.
Juncao, famed as "magic grass" and discovered by Chinese scientists, is an economical and environmentally friendly substitute for timber, which can be used as a substrate for growing mushrooms.
Eighteen years later, during Xi's state visit to the Oceanian country, the two countries signed another aid project using the grass technology. By 2023, the aid program is expected to lift 30,000 local people out of poverty.
Today, the Juncao project has taken root in over 100 countries, helping combat poverty in developing countries in Africa, Asia and the South Pacific region.
Meanwhile, from the decades-old Canton Fair to the 3-year-old China International Import Expo and to the newly launched China International Consumer Products Expo, high-end international expos have repeatedly demonstrated China's commitment to wider opening-up and mutual benefits.
Read: China sees remarkable achievements under CPC leadership, says Pakistani PM
Tigray fighters in Ethiopia reject cease-fire as ‘sick joke’
The fighters now retaking parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray region will pursue soldiers from neighboring Eritrea back into their country and chase Ethiopian forces to Addis Ababa ”if that’s what it takes” to weaken their military powers, their spokesman said Tuesday, as a conflict that has killed thousands of civilians looked certain to continue.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Getachew Reda said that “we’ll stop at nothing to liberate every square inch” of the Tigray region of 6 million people, nearly eight months after fighting erupted between the Tigray forces and Ethiopian soldiers backed by Eritrea.
He rejected the unilateral cease-fire Ethiopia’s government declared Monday as a “sick joke” and accused Ethiopia of long denying humanitarian aid to the Tigrayans it now “pretends to care about.” Ethiopia declared the unilateral cease-fire as its soldiers and hand-picked regional interim administration fled the Tigray regional capital following some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
Read:Ethiopia declares immediate, unilateral cease-fire in Tigray
“We want to stop the war as quickly as we can,” the Tigray spokesman said.
But he said liberating the region is not just about territory. “If there is still a menace next door,” whether it be in Eritrea, “extremists” from the neighboring Amhara region who have occupied western Tigray or Ethiopian forces, it’s about assuring Tigrayans’ security, he said.
The comments were sure to bring new alarm from the United States, United Nations and others who have pressed for an end to the fighting in Africa’s second most populous country that has sent hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans into the world’s worst famine crisis in a decade.
This week’s swift turn in the war has left people scrambling to understand the implications for Tigray, as communications links remained largely cut.
Eritrean soldiers, accused by witnesses of some of the war’s worst atrocities against Tigrayans, left the towns of Shire, Axum and Adwa, witnesses said, but it was not clear whether the retreat was temporary. The information ministry of Eritrea, a longtime enemy of Tigray’s former leaders and described by human rights groups as one of the world’s most repressive countries, did not immediately respond to questions.
“We don’t yet know if they are withdrawing” from Tigray altogether, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Godec told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He said the U.S. had seen no statement from Eritrea saying it was committed to the cease-fire after “what appears to be a significant withdrawal of Ethiopian national defense forces from Tigray.”
The Tigray leaders have waged a guerrilla war since November after a political falling out with the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who had sidelined them from influential roles in Ethiopia’s government and military. An Ethiopian military spokesman did not answer the phone Tuesday.
Read:Witnesses: Airstrike in Ethiopia's Tigray kills more than 50
The arrival of Tigray forces in the regional capital, Mekele, on Monday was met with cheers. The fighters on Tuesday moved into Axum and Shire, a town that in recent months saw the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing intimidation in western Tigray and is a key staging area for humanitarian aid.
Tigray forces are now in control of much of the region after a major counteroffensive with mass popular support, International Crisis Group analyst William Davison said in a statement. They are “now in a position to facilitate access to many previously hard to reach areas,” he said, urging Ethiopia’s government not to sabotage the urgent humanitarian efforts.
But the Tigray forces’ talk “indicates how distrustful they are of the cease-fire,” Aly Verjee, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, told AP. “Of course, I think it’s highly irresponsible for them to say such things. It doesn’t do anything for people on the brink of famine. At the same time, I understand they’re motivated by deep suspicion of Eritrean forces in particular.”
Major questions remained about the fate of the more than 1 million civilians that the United Nations has said remain in parts of Tigray that have been hard, if not impossible, to reach with aid. The United States has said up to 900,000 people now face famine conditions, in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade.
That famine “is entirely man-made,” the acting U.S. assistant secretary of state said.
Sarah Charles, assistant to the administrator for the United States Agency for International Development, told the Washington hearing that the next week or two will be consequential. She urged Ethiopia to lift a “communications blackout” on Tigray and said forces from the Amhara region must lift checkpoints on key roads for aid delivery.
Read:Witnesses say airstrike in Ethiopia’s Tigray kills dozens
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that “the impact of the current situation on the humanitarian operations in the region remains unknown right now.” Operations have been “constrained for the past few days due to the ongoing fighting.” The airport in Mekele was closed, and routes to deliver aid were not open, he said.
Ethiopia has said the cease-fire is in part for the delivery of aid but will last only until the end of the crucial planting season in Tigray — which is in September.
In Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, people said they weren’t sure who to believe amid the battlefield claims, and hoped for peace.
“It’s the innocent children, farmers and the poor people that are at the front of the war and are suffering,” resident Biruk Dessalegn said.
Fearing COVID, struggling Malawian women forgo prenatal care
Prenatal services at the health clinic were free, but the motorcycle taxi fare cost more than Monica Maxwell could afford. Just four weeks before delivering her baby, she cobbled together 1,400 kwacha ($1.75) for the 50-kilometer (31-mile) round trip. It was only her third visit -- fewer than her first two pregnancies. The money she made selling tomatoes at the local market dried up due to the pandemic. Her husband’s income selling goat meat also dwindled.
“It was the most difficult period of our lives. We had no money for our daily survival,” Maxwell, 31, said as she waited outside with other women to be seen by a medical midwife. “Mostly we stayed home.”
In a country where hospitals are so bare that women are expected to bring their own razor blades for cutting their babies’ umbilical cords, the deepening poverty brought on by the pandemic is further imperiling women’s lives.
Read:Virus outbreak in Fiji batters economy, tests health system
Officials say far fewer pregnant women in Malawi are getting the health care they need amid the pandemic, with many forgoing medical visits and relying solely on traditional birth attendants, who provide emotional support and administer traditional herbal treatments but are technically banned by the government from delivering babies because of their lack of formal training. Many families can’t afford clinic visits, or, like Maxwell, the transportation to get there; they also fear they’ll catch coronavirus in a medical facility.
At risk are the gains that Malawi — a largely rural sliver of a country, with 18 million people — has made over the past decade to combat its poor record of maternal deaths. Malawian women face a 1-in-29 lifetime risk of death related to a pregnancy or birth, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The country has 439 such deaths per 100,000 live births — a figure it had worked to reduce from 984 per 100,000 in 2004, as women got better access to medical care, especially in emergencies.
Still, Malawi’s rate is the third-highest in southern Africa. The rates are 19 per 100,000 births in the United States and 7 per 100,000 in the United Kingdom.
Malawian hospitals also suffered staffing shortages when nurses were mobilized to treat coronavirus patients — leading to some lack of experienced personnel for births, said Young Hong, of the United Nations Population Fund.
“Not only did the pandemic affect availability of manpower, it also exerted much pressure on the entire health system, including the stock out of certain medicines, equipment, basic medical supply like surgical gloves,” said Hong, who noted that eight Malawian women die daily of pregnancy complications, far higher than the COVID-19 toll. “This had a huge impact on the quality of maternal health service provision during the pandemic.”
At the Ndirande Health Center, just northeast of the country’s commercial capital of Blantyre, about 100 women visited daily for prenatal services before the pandemic. When COVID-19 emerged, that number dropped by half, and now is as low as 15 to 20 patients, said Jacqueline Kolove, a nursing officer at the clinic.
Sometimes even the women who come for prenatal care are afraid to deliver at the clinic during the pandemic, preferring to give birth at home. Malawian women are encouraged to give birth without medical intervention, and many here believe that emergency measures such as cesarean sections are shameful and a sign of weakness. Deciding to give birth at home, though, can be deadly — most women live too far away to make it in time if a dangerous complication arises.
“We explain to them why such a decision might have the dire consequences ... sometimes even calling their husbands and parents to try to reason with them,” Kolove said.
At Ndirande and other clinics, nurses, aides and medical midwives give pregnant women ultrasounds and use equipment to listen to the vital signs of mother and baby. A woman can undergo a cesarean section if needed, and medications are available to stop severe bleeding. Clinic staff take medical courses, observe simulated births, and become licensed.
Traditional birthing attendants learn from elders who pass down knowledge through generations and use little to no medical equipment — they listen to women’s bellies by placing their ears there, for example, and gather herbs to induce labor. They say certain herbs, boiled into a dark-green liquid, can address situations such as breech babies who needs to change positions.
Read:Australia battles several clusters in new pandemic phase
The government banned traditional birthing attendants’ delivery work in 2007, but the practice has continued, with the ban rarely enforced. Some attendants charge nothing, and they’ve seen an increase in women coming to them during the pandemic. Attendants such as Lucy Mbewe, who’s 56 and estimates she’s delivered 4,000 babies since 1983, say their work is key for women who can’t afford anything else.
Even the colorful African cloth that is widely used to wrap babies, carry them on mothers’ backs or create makeshift diapers can be a potential obstacle to care, Mbewe noted. “The government hospitals recommend that a woman who is going to deliver needs to carry with her at least 10 pieces of cloth, which is a deterrent to those that cannot even afford to put food on the table,” she said.
At government facilities, Malawian women are even expected to bring a covering for the delivery bed, buckets for water, and sometimes candles or flashlights. Mbewe provides clothing and soap when she helps women give birth. She pays for transportation home. Some women are so grateful they return to pay her; she uses that money to care for other needy clients, she said.
But medically trained midwives say the mounting use of attendants has caused a spike in complicated deliveries, with women going to the hospital only once it’s too late to save them. Mbewe says the complications are caused not by the traditional caregivers, but are attributable to expectant mothers getting pregnant at younger ages — a trend confirmed by a government report.
Midwives and health officials also say they’re fighting against misinformation about the virus and vaccines that deters women from seeking proper medical care. Malawi didn’t have a full social lockdown and has seen a dramatic rise in coronavirus cases, part of a surge across southern Africa. Experts believe cases are undercounted, and apprehension about the vaccine is widespread.
The Malawian government has administered less than 213,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. And officials destroyed about 20,000 expired doses provided by COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to ship vaccines to poor countries. Across all of Africa, just 1% of the population of 1.3 billion people in 54 countries has had one dose of the vaccine, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nurses and midwives say some women fear they’ll secretly be given the vaccine if they deliver at a medical facility.
“They feel, as health workers, we are giving them the COVID-19 vaccine instead of oxytocin,” said Kolove, the nursing officer at the Ndirande Health Center, referring to medicine that strengthens contractions and reduces the risk of bleeding. “They feel we are cheating them. As a result, there are some cases where women refuse.”
Medical staff also understand that they and the women they treat are at a higher risk of contracting coronavirus. The medically trained midwives try to educate women, and they take every precaution possible against the virus, even though their work delivering babies makes keeping a physical distance impossible, said Keith Lipato, president of the Association of Malawian Midwives.
“We make sure that all midwives are screened and tested so that those with signs and symptoms are excused from work, and given the necessary medical treatment so that they do not infect clients and patients,” Lipato said.
The precautions don’t persuade many expectant mothers, though. Five months into her pregnancy, Margret Kosamu has yet to visit a health clinic. Instead, the 30-year-old has turned to a traditional birth attendant for just two visits. Her family’s farming income has dropped, but it’s not just an issue of money; she fears visiting a medical facility could kill her, not save her life.
“One is more likely going to contract the virus at the hospital than here,” she said of the attendant’s care.
Lipato and other medical workers fear that the pandemic will have long-lasting effects on women’s health in Malawi and beyond.
Read:As variant rises, vaccine plan targets ‘movable middle’
Patricia Gunde, 26, has not received any prenatal services during her first pregnancy. She prefers instead to receive the herbs her attendant says will keep her healthy and hasten labor. Gunde has no plans to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
“I am afraid,” she said. “I have heard many stories about it.”
With the traditional birth attendant, she feels at ease because women are seen one at a time.
When the attendant brings Gunde in for care, neither wears a mask.