East news. East is the direction toward which the Earth rotates about its axis, and therefore the general direction from which the Sun appears to rise. The practice of praying towards the East is older than Christianity, but has been adopted by this religion as the Orient was thought of as containing mankind’s original home
In this edition of Straight Talk Africa, host Haydé Adams looks at Africa’s urban development.
She is joined by Wandile Mthiyane, architect and CEO of Ubuntu Design Group, Emana Nsikan-George, climate researcher and sustainability practitioner on climate actions, Christian Benimana, managing director of MASS Design Group and Johnny Miller, photographer of Unequal Scenes.
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In this edition of Straight Talk Africa, host Haydé Adams looks at Africa’s urban development.
She is joined by Wandile Mthiyane, architect and CEO of Ubuntu Design Group, Emana Nsikan-George, climate researcher and sustainability practitioner on climate actions, Christian Benimana, managing director of MASS Design Group and Johnny Miller, photographer of Unequal Scenes.
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In Armenia, there is no shortage of COVID-19 vaccines in part because of vaccination hesitancy across the region. While in neighboring Iran, the lack of vaccines has led to long waiting periods for those who want to get inoculated. Now, Armenia is now offering Iranians a chance to get a shot for free. Shake Avoyan has the story narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Shake Avoyan
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Myanmar’s military rulers are again seeking to replace the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, who opposed their February 1 ouster of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and takeover of the government.
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin says in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he has appointed Aung Thurein, who left the military this year after 26 years, as Myanmar’s U.N. ambassador. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
Lwin said in an accompanying letter that Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s currently recognized U.N. ambassador, “has been terminated on Feb. 27, 2021, due to abuses of his assigned duty and mandate.”
In a dramatic speech to a General Assembly meeting on Myanmar on February 26 — weeks after the military takeover — Tun appealed for “the strongest possible action from the international community” to restore democracy to the country. He also urged all countries to strongly condemn the coup, refuse to recognize the military regime, and ask the military leaders to respect the November 2020 elections won by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.
“We will continue to fight for a government which is of the people, by the people, for the people,” Tun said in a speech that drew loud applause from diplomats in the assembly chamber who called it powerful, brave and courageous.
The military’s previous attempt to oust Tun failed and there has been no reported action on the foreign minister’s letter, which is dated May 12.
The 193-member General Assembly is in charge of accrediting diplomats. A request for accreditation must first go to its nine-member credentials committee, which this year is made up of Cameroon, China, Iceland, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tanzania, United States and Uruguay.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said that as far as he understands, no meeting of the credentials committee has been scheduled.
In June, the U.N. said the secretary-general indicated that the results of the November election that gave a strong second mandate to Suu Kyi’s party must be upheld.
The London-based Myanmar Accountability Project condemned the military’s attempts to replace Tun as well as Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Kyaw Zwar Minn, who also remains loyal to Suu Kyi. The Guardian newspaper reported in April that Minn remains in limbo after being locked out of the London embassy by his deputy and the country’s military attaché.
The Guardian quoted Minn as saying his friends and relatives in Myanmar had been forced into hiding and he did not feel safe in the ambassador’s residence, which he still occupied at the time.
The Myanmar Accountability Project’s director, Chris Gunness, said the military is seeking to replace Minn with former fighter pilot Htun Aung Kyaw.
Both Thurein and Kyaw have strong military backgrounds that “make ugly reading,” Gunness said, adding that Thurein’s remaining in the military until 2021 strongly suggests he served during the February 1 military takeover and the crackdown afterward.
He called it “an affront to the world body” that the military is seeking to send to the U.N. “a man with such strong connections to an institution with blood on its hands and which stood accused of genocide in The Hague even before the coup.”
A U.N.-established investigation has recommended the prosecution of Myanmar’s top military commanders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the 2017 military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims that forced 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
In January 2020, the United Nations’ top court based in The Hague, Netherlands, ordered Myanmar to do all it can to prevent genocide against the Rohingya still in Myanmar. The ruling by the International Court of Justice came despite appeals by Suu Kyi for the judges to drop the case amid her denials of genocide by the armed forces.
Gunness said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders have condemned the coup and the U.K. and its allies have imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military leaders and their commercial interests. He said it would be “a gross double standard and a moral outrage” for the government to accredit Kyaw, saying he doesn’t represent the legitimate government and “served in an army that stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
He also urged Britain to use its influence at the U.N. to ensure that the credentials committee doesn’t accredit Thurein.
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Fighting in Afghanistan temporarily subsided Tuesday on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, as Taliban insurgents said they were observing an unannounced cease-fire to enable Afghans to peacefully participate in the festivities.
While there were no reports of battlefield clashes between Afghan government forces and the Taliban across the country, a rocket attack shattered the capital, Kabul, during early morning prayers, which mark the opening of the three-day Eid celebrations.
The Afghan interior ministry said at least three rockets landed near the presidential palace, where President Ashraf Ghani was offering Eid prayers, along with top government officials. But TV images showed Ghani and most of other worshippers continued praying at the outdoor gathering. No casualties were reported.
The Islamic State’s regional affiliate, known as IS Khorasan Province, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Taliban have regularly called Eid truces with Afghan security forces since mid-2018, but the insurgent group made no such official announcement for this week’s festivities.
“Every year there is a de facto Eid cease-fire from our side to enable our nation to peacefully and comfortably attend the festivities,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told VOA when asked why his group this time did not declare a truce.
“Sometimes we officially announce it and sometimes we don’t. But even when we don’t declare a cease-fire on Eid, practically it is in place,” Shaheen explained.
The Afghan private TOLOnews TV channel said there were no reports of Taliban attacks or clashes in contested districts between the government forces and the insurgents.
“The cessation of fighting allowed Afghans to celebrate the beginning of the holiday with calm,” the network reported.
Insecurity has worsened in Afghanistan as the withdrawal of the United-States-led foreign troops is progressing ahead of scheduled and it should conclude by the end of next month.
The drawdown process is more than 95% complete, but it has encouraged the Taliban to step up attacks and overrun a growing number of Afghan districts as well as key border crossings the landlocked nation has with neighboring countries.
The U.S.-brokered peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government representatives have not produced any significant outcome.
Top leaders from the two sides met in Doha, Qatar, last week and agreed to accelerate the peace process but did not report any major breakthrough.
Shaheen reiterated Tuesday that the Taliban do not intend to militarily seize power in Afghanistan and want to negotiate a peace arrangement with rival Afghans to end the war.
But Ghani and foreign critics are skeptical of the insurgent pledges.
“We have the resolve for peace, and we are ready to sacrifice for it. But they (Taliban) have no intention, nor they desire peace,” Ghani said in his nationally televised speech following the morning prayers for Eid.
On Monday, foreign diplomatic missions in Kabul also collectively called for the Taliban to urgently cease military offensives, saying they run counter to claims the insurgent group wants a negotiated settlement to the war.
“We continue to call for an accelerated path to a political settlement and an end to the violence,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
“What we have been consistent in saying is that the people of Afghanistan are united in their desire for a just and for a lasting peace, and that is what the diplomacy we are supporting and much of the international community is supporting is geared to effect.”
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Heavy rainfall forced the subway system in Zhengzhou, capital of China’s Henan province, to shut down Tuesday, stranding passengers.
Riders posted videos on social media as they awaited rescue in waist-high muddy waters. A passenger named Xiaopei posted on Weibo that “the water in the carriage has reached (their) chest.”
Around 300 people have been rescued so far, and an unknown number remain trapped.
Local media outlets report that train floodwaters were lowering.
Henan province, home to about 94 million people, experienced severe rains through the past week. On Tuesday, the region’s meteorological station issued the highest threat level, a red warning, as rains are expected to continue for the next 24 hours, Reuters reported.
A representative of the city of Xu Liyi, a member of the Standing Committee of Henan Provincial Party Committee, and Secretary of the Zhengzhou Municipal Party Committee said the high levels of rainfall were unusual.
Extreme weather events have surged this summer in China, with recent flooding in Sichuan province killing hundreds of citizens and forcing thousands to evacuate the area. Officials of Greenpeace International, an environmental group, warn that China’s rapid urbanization will increase the frequency of climate disasters.
Speaking to the Chinese media, Liu Junyan of Greenpeace said “because of the highly concentrated population, infrastructure and economic activity, the exposure and vulnerability of climate hazards are higher in urban areas.”
This report contains information from Reuters.
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Resurgent pandemic worries knocked stocks lower from Wall Street to Tokyo on Monday, fueled by fears that a faster-spreading variant of the virus may upend the economy’s strong recovery.
The S&P 500 fell 68.67, or 1.6%, to 4,258.49, after setting a record just a week earlier. In another sign of worry, the yield on the 10-year Treasury touched its lowest level in five months as investors scrambled for safer places to put their money.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 725.81, or 2.1%, to 33,962.04, while the Nasdaq composite lost 152.25, or 1.1%, to 14,274.98.
Airlines and other companies that would get hurt the most by potential COVID-19 restrictions took some of the heaviest losses, similar to the early days of the pandemic in February and March 2020. United Airlines lost 5.5%, mall owner Simon Property Group gave up 5.9%, and cruise operator Carnival fell 5.7%.
The selling also circled the world, with several European markets sinking roughly 2.5% and Asian indexes down a bit less. The price of benchmark U.S. crude, meanwhile, fell more than 7% after OPEC and allied nations agreed on Sunday to eventually allow for higher oil production this year.
COVID numbers
Increased worries about the virus may seem strange to people in parts of the world where masks are coming off, or already have, thanks to COVID-19 vaccinations. But the World Health Organization says cases and deaths are climbing globally after a period of decline, spurred by the highly contagious delta variant. And given how tightly connected the global economy is, a hit anywhere can quickly affect the other side of the world.
Even in the U.S., where the vaccination rate is higher than in many other countries, people in Los Angeles County must once again wear masks indoors regardless of whether they’re vaccinated following spikes in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Across the country, the daily number of COVID-19 cases has soared by nearly 20,000 over the past two weeks to about 32,000. The vaccine campaign has hit a wall, with the average number of daily inoculations sinking to the lowest levels since January, and cases are on the rise in all 50 states.
Economic growth expected
That’s why markets are concerned, even though reports show the economy is still recovering at a fantastically high rate and the general expectation is for it to deliver continued growth. Any worsening of virus trends threatens the high prices that stocks have achieved on expectations the economy will fulfill those lofty forecasts.
Financial markets have been showing signs of increased concerns for a while, but the U.S. stock market had remained largely resilient. The S&P 500 has had just two down weeks in the past eight, and the last time it had even a 5% pullback from a record high was in October.
Several analysts pointed to that backdrop of high prices and very calm movements for weeks while dissecting Monday’s drop.
“It’s a bit of an overreaction, but when you have a market that’s at record highs, that’s had the kind of run we’ve had, with virtually no pullback, it becomes extremely vulnerable to any sort of bad news,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab. “It was just a matter of what that tipping point was, and it seems we finally reached that this morning” with worries about the delta variant.
He and other analysts are optimistic stocks can rebound quickly. Investors have been trained recently to see every dip in stocks as merely an opportunity to buy low.
Barry Bannister, chief equity strategist at Stifel, was more pessimistic. He said the stock market may be in the early stages of a drop of as much as 10% following its big run higher. The S&P 500 nearly doubled after hitting its bottom in March 2020.
“The valuations, they just got too frothy,” he said. “There was just so much optimism out there.”
The bond market has been louder and more persistent in its warnings. The yield on the 10-year Treasury tends to move with expectations for economic growth and for inflation, and it has been sinking since late March, when it was at roughly 1.75%. It fell to 1.20% Monday from 1.29% late Friday.
Analysts and professional investors say a long list of potential reasons is behind the sharp moves in the bond market, which is seen as more rational and sober than the stock market. But at the heart is the risk the economy may be set to slow sharply from its current, extremely high growth.
Risks to economy
Besides the new variants of the coronavirus, other risks to the economy include fading pandemic relief efforts from the U.S. government and a Federal Reserve that looks set to begin paring back its assistance for markets later this year.
Monday’s selling pressure was widespread, with nearly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 lower. Even Big Tech stocks fell, with Apple down 2.7% and Microsoft 1.3% lower. Such stocks seemed nearly immune to virus fears during earlier downturns, rising with expectations for continued growth almost regardless of the economy’s strength.
Across the S&P 500, analysts are forecasting profit growth of nearly 70% for the second quarter from a year earlier. That would be the strongest growth since 2009, when the economy was climbing out of the Great Recession.
But just like worries are rising that the economy’s growth has already peaked, analysts are trying to handicap by how much growth rates will slow in upcoming quarters and years for corporate profits.
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Authorities in Cameroon said at least 70,000 schoolchildren and their teachers have returned to classrooms this year in the troubled western regions. The schools had been abandoned due to threats from English-speaking rebels, who see them as an arm of the French-speaking-majority’s rule.
Fourteen-year-old Clementine Fua is spending a holiday in Yaoundé with her uncle. Fua said this year, she braved threats from separatists and successfully went to school in her hometown Njinikom, in the English-speaking Northwest region. Fua said separatists deprived her of education for three years.
“It is good for everyone to go to school so they can have the knowledge,” Fua said. “We struggled through the crisis. When we were going to school there were gunshots, we ran and we came back (to school) by God’s grace. God helped us. We wrote the First School Leaving Certificate peacefully.”
Cameron’s First School Leaving Certificate and Common Entrance Examinations qualify primary students for secondary school studies.
Cameroon’s ministries of basic and secondary education said Fua is one of 70,000 students who returned to more than 400 re-opened schools this year in the Northwest and Southwest regions.
Wilfred Wambeng Ndong is the highest government official in charge of basic education in the Northwest.
He reports that the number of children who took their First School Leaving exams this year increased dramatically.
“Last year we had 12,786 candidates who sat the First School Leaving and Common Entrance,” Ndong said. “And this year, we have 27,128, meaning that the number almost doubled.”
Ngwang Roland Yuven is in charge of secondary education in the Northwest region. He said the number of kids taking secondary school exams also increased.
“This year, the figure moved from the 13,000 of last year to 22,482 candidates,” Yuven said. “The examinations were conducted in a hitch-free manner thanks to the strict and committed follow-up by security. The success also came about as a result of the determination and resilience of parents and the candidates themselves who defied all challenges to ensure that they participated.”
Yuven said the success recorded this year might motivate parents to send their children back to school, despite continued threats from separatist militants.
The separatists attacked or set fire to more than 200 schools between 2017 and 2019, and nearly all schools in the North- and Southwest regions shut down, as teachers left their jobs due to insecurity.
Nji Samuel Kale is education secretary of schools owned by the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, or the PCC. He said everyone involved — students, parents, teachers and security forces — has shown great commitment to making sure the schools stay open.
“We want to thank the community for the strong mobilization they carried out to ensure that the schools reopened,” Kale said. “The community and the Christians helped us run the schools. The teachers, we must attest, they have been enduring a lot. They have shown a lot of resilience. We are praying that unfortunate incidents should not occur again so that the children should have education.”
The separatists launched their rebellion in 2017. According to the United Nations, more than 3,000 people, including soldiers and police, have been killed since the violence in the regions began.
Professor William LeoGrande, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs in the Department of Government at the American University, and Professor of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University, Eduardo Gamarra, analyze with host Carol Castiel the roots and ramifications of twin crises in the Caribbean: the assassination of Haiti’s President, Jovenal Moïse, and ensuing power struggle and the largest and most widespread protests in Cuba in decades. How does the turmoil affect US policy toward the region? Given the large Cuban and Haitian Diaspora communities in the United States, how does the Biden Administration deal with both domestic and international dimension of policy?
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Once part of a balanced ecosystem, the number of native sea urchins in Australia is multiplying. Scientists have offered a solution, but will people find it palatable? VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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Thai police used tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets on Sunday as they tried to stop protesters from marching on the office of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha calling for him to resign.
More than 1,000 protesters took part in the demonstration, which police had so far not dispersed.
Many demonstrators carried mock body-bags to represent coronavirus deaths, as they blame the prime minister and his government for mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The government has been poor at managing the situation and if we don’t do anything there will be no change,” one protester, Kanyaporn Veeratat, 34, told Reuters.
The use of force by the police came after some protesters tried to dismantle barbed wire and metal barricades set up by the authorities to block roads from Democracy Monument to Government House where the prime minister works.
“Murderous government!,” Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul, a protest leader, tweeted after the use of force.
The protest marked one year since the first of a wave of large-scale street protests led by youth groups that attracted hundreds of thousands of people across the country.
The momentum of those protests stalled after authorities began cracking down on rallies and detaining protest leaders, and after new waves of COVID-19 infections broke out.
Most of the protest leaders who were detained have been released on bail and some took part in anti-government protests last month.
As part of curbs to stem the coronavirus spread, the government on Friday imposed a new nationwide ban on public gatherings of more than five people, which carries a maximum penalty of a two-year jail term or a fine of up to 40,000 baht ($1,220), or both.
Thailand reported 11,397 infections and 101 deaths on Sunday, bringing the cumulative total to 403,386 cases and 3,341 fatalities, the vast majority from an outbreak since early April that is being fueled by the highly transmissible Alpha and Delta COVID-19 variants.
Police urged people not to join Sunday’s protest, saying that to do so risked further spreading coronavirus, and warned that those who breached the law and cause unrest will face charges.
“There has been increasing in the number of newly infected cases on a daily basis,” said deputy police spokesman Kissana Phathanacharoen. “Joining such a rally would raise public concerns, public health concern and worsen the current situation,” he said.
Street protests against the prime minister have been held in recent weeks by several groups, including Prayuth’s former political allies, as frustrations grow over the mounting infections and the damage the pandemic has done to the economy.
Last year’s protests also broke traditional taboos by openly criticizing the king, an offence under the country’s strict lese majeste law that makes insulting or defaming the king, queen, heir and regent punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Police said Sunday that 13 people were killed and many others seriously burned when an overturned petrol tanker exploded in western Kenya as crowds thronged to collect the spilling fuel.
The fuel truck collided with another vehicle and toppled over late Saturday near Malanga, some 315 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, on the busy highway between Kisumu and the border with Uganda.
Onlookers rushed to the scene with jerrycans but the cargo exploded, engulfing those around in a fireball.
“It burst into flames as they scooped fuel that was flowing,” said Charles Chacha, a local police chief in Siaya County where the accident occurred.
“We counted 12 bodies at the scene. Another person died in hospital from their injuries.”
Fire crews arrived on the scene two hours later to douse the inferno while those injured in the blast were taken to hospital.
“Many others have been taken to hospital with serious burns and they include young children,” Chacha said.
The cause of the explosion is not yet known.
Images broadcast by Kenyan media showed the blazing tanker lighting up the night sky and in the morning following, crowds gaping at the twisted, smoldering wreckage.
Deadly fuel truck accidents along perilous roads are not uncommon in Kenya and the wider East Africa region.
In 2009, more than 100 people were killed when a petrol tanker overturned northwest of Nairobi and an explosion consumed those gathering to collect leaking fuel.
More recently, at least 100 people were killed when a tanker exploded in Tanzania in 2019 while in 2015 more than 200 perished in a similar accident in South Sudan.
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Major oil producers seeking to boost output will meet on Sunday, OPEC said, after negotiations earlier this month became deadlocked over plans to gradually ease production cuts.
The OPEC+ grouping, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia, will meet via videoconference at 1000 GMT on Sunday, the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat said in a statement.
The group’s 23 members canceled a meeting on July 5 that was supposed to overcome an impasse over crude output levels.
Since May, the group has raised oil output bit by bit, after slashing it more than a year ago when the coronavirus pandemic crushed demand.
At stake is a proposal that would see the world’s leading oil producers raise output by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) each month from August to December.
That would add 2 million bpd to markets by the end of the year, helping to fuel a global economic recovery as the coronavirus pandemic eases.
A further proposal seeks to extend a deadline on capping output from April 2022 to the end of 2022.
But holding out against the new deal was the United Arab Emirates, which criticized the terms of the extension as unjust.
Oil prices, which had already been sliding owing to concerns about the global economy, plummeted in April 2020 as coronavirus spread around the world and battered global consumption, transport and supply chains.
OPEC+ decided to withdraw 9.7 million bpd from the market and to gradually restore supplies by the end of April 2022. Benchmark oil prices rebounded as a result.
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Martine Moise, the wife of Haiti’s assassinated president who was injured in the July 7 attack at their private home, returned to the Caribbean nation on Saturday following her release from a Miami hospital.
Her arrival was unannounced and surprised many in the country of more than 11 million people still reeling from the assassination of Jovenel Moise in a raid authorities say involved Haitians, Haitian Americans and former Colombian soldiers.
Martine Moise disembarked the flight at the Port-au-Prince airport wearing a black dress, a black bulletproof vest and a black face mask. Her right arm was in a black sling as she slowly walked down the steps of what appeared to be a private plane. She was greeted by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph and other officials.
Earlier this week, she tweeted from the Miami hospital that she could not believe her husband was gone “without saying a last word. This pain will never pass.”
On Friday, government officials announced that Jovenel Moise’s funeral would be on July 23 in the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haitien and that his wife was expected to attend.
Group: Let chosen PM form government
Earlier Saturday a key group of international diplomats issued a statement urging Ariel Henry, the designated prime minister, to form a government following Moise’s killing.
Joseph has been leading Haiti with the backing of police and the military even though Moise had announced Joseph’s replacement a day before he was killed.
Joseph and his allies argue that Henry was never sworn in, though he pledged to work with him and with Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s inactive Senate.
The statement was issued by the Core Group, which is made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the U.S., France, the European Union and representatives from the United Nations and the Organization of American States.
The group called for the creation of “a consensual and inclusive government.”
“To this end, it strongly encourages the designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry to continue the mission entrusted to him to form such a government,” the group said.
U.S. officials could not be immediately reached for comment. A U.N. spokesman declined comment except to say that the U.N. is part of the group that issued the statement. An OAS spokesman said: “For the moment, there is nothing further to say other than what the statement says.”
Henry and spokespeople for Joseph did not immediately return messages for comment.
Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said the statement was very confusing, especially after the U.N. representative had said that Joseph was in charge.
The question of who should take over has been complicated by the fact Haiti’s parliament has not been functioning because a lack of elections meant most members’ terms had expired. And the head of the Supreme Court recently died of COVID-19.
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Former Haitian justice ministry official Joseph Felix Badio may have ordered the assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise, the head of Colombia’s national police has said, citing a preliminary investigation into the killing.
Moise was shot dead at his private residence in a suburb of Port-au-Prince before dawn on July 7.
An investigation by Haitian and Colombian authorities, alongside Interpol, into Moise’s killing has revealed that Badio appeared to have given an order for the assassination three days before the attack, General Jorge Vargas said Friday at a news conference and in an audio message sent to news outlets by the police.
It was not immediately possible to reach Badio for comment. His whereabouts are unknown.
According to Vargas, the investigation found that Badio had ordered former Colombian soldiers Duberney Capador and German Rivera to kill Moise. The men had initially been contacted to carry out security services.
“Several days before, apparently three, Joseph Felix Badio, who was a former official of [Haiti’s] ministry of justice, who worked in the anti-corruption unit with the general intelligence service, told Capador and Rivera that they had to assassinate the president of Haiti,” Vargas said.
Vargas did not provide proof or give more details about where the information came from.
Capador was killed and Rivera was captured by Haiti police in the aftermath of Moise’s killing, authorities have said.
Alleged mastermind
On Sunday, Haitian authorities detained Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 63, widely described as a Florida-based doctor, and accused him of being one of the masterminds behind the killing.
Former Haitian Senator John Joel Joseph is being sought by police after Haiti’s National Police Chief Leon Charles identified him as a key player in the plot, while Dimitri Herard, the head of palace security for Moise, has been arrested.
“This is a big plot. A lot of people are part of it,” Haiti’s Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a news conference. “I am determined to move the investigation forward.”
The group of assassins included 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans, according to Haitian authorities. Eighteen of the Colombians have been captured, while five are on the run and three were killed.
Many of the Colombians accused of involvement in the assassination went to the country as bodyguards, Colombian President Ivan Duque said Thursday. That has been confirmed by relatives and colleagues of some of the detained Colombians.
“We are assisting in all the support tasks for the interviews that are being carried out with the captured Colombians,” Vargas said.
Colombia will send a consular mission to Haiti as soon as it is approved by the Caribbean nation, Colombian Vice President and Foreign Minister Marta Lucia Ramirez told journalists on Friday, to meet with the detained Colombians, ensure their rights are being respected, and move ahead with the repatriation of the remains of the deceased Colombians.
The ministry is in daily contact with the families of the dead and detained, Ramirez added.
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A federal judge in Texas on Friday ordered an end to an Obama-era program that prevented the deportations of some immigrants brought into the United States as children.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ruled in favor of Texas and eight other conservative states that had sued to halt the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides limited protections to about 650,000 people. People who are already enrolled won’t lose protections, but Hanen is barring the processing of new applications.
Hanen’s decision limits the immediate ability of President Joe Biden, who pledged during his campaign to protect DACA, to keep the program or something similar in place. His ruling is the second by a federal judge in Texas stopping Biden’s immigration plans, after a court barred enforcement of Biden’s 100-day stay on most deportations.
Biden has proposed legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people who are living in the U.S. without authorization. He also ordered agencies to try to preserve the program.
It’s up to Congress, judge says
Supporters of DACA, including those who argued before Hanen to save it, have said a law passed by Congress is necessary to provide permanent relief. Hanen has said Congress must act if the U.S. wants to provide the protections in DACA to recipients commonly known as “Dreamers.”
Hanen’s ruling came after he held a nearly 3½-hour court hearing December 22 on DACA’s fate.
The states argued that former President Barack Obama never had the authority in 2012 to create a program like DACA because it circumvented Congress. The states also argued the program drains their educational and health care resources.
Suing alongside Texas were Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia — states that all had Republican governors or state attorneys general.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, which defended the program on behalf of a group of DACA recipients, had argued Obama had the authority to institute DACA and that the states lacked the standing to sue because they had not suffered any harm because of the program.
Ruling foreshadowed
Hanen had rejected Texas’ request in 2018 to stop the program through a preliminary injunction. But in a foreshadowing of his latest ruling, Hanen said in 2018 that he believed DACA as enacted was likely unconstitutional.
“If the nation truly wants to have a DACA program, it is up to Congress to say so,” Hanen wrote then.
Hanen ruled in 2015 that Obama could not expand DACA protections or institute a program shielding their parents.
While DACA is often described as a program for young immigrants, many recipients have lived in the U.S. for a decade or longer after being brought into the country without permission or overstaying visas. The liberal Center for American Progress says roughly 254,000 children have at least one parent relying on DACA. Some recipients are grandparents.
The U.S. Supreme Court previously ruled that former President Donald Trump’s attempt to end DACA in 2017 was unlawful. A New York judge in December ordered the Trump administration to restore the program as enacted by Obama.
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At least seven Colombian nationals who were arrested by Haitian authorities in connection with the assassination of President Jovenel Moise received U.S. military or police training.
A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, told VOA Friday that all seven had been members of the Colombian military at the time they received the training.
“Individuals had been approved for a variety of training activities held both in Colombia and the United States between 2001-2015,” the official said. “Examples of the types of training received were various types of military leadership and professional development training, emergency medical training, helicopter maintenance, and attendance at seminars on counternarcotics and counterterrorism.”
The official said both the State Department and the Department of Defense are continuing to review their records to see if any additional suspects in the assassination have ties to the U.S.
“Their alleged involvement in this incident stands in stark contrast to outstanding conduct and performance of hundreds of thousands of foreign military students that have benefitted from U.S. education training programs over the past 40 years,” the official said.
Word that a “small number” of the Colombian nationals in Haitian custody had gotten U.S. training first came Thursday, though a Pentagon spokesperson told VOA that any such training “emphasizes and promotes respect for human rights, compliance with the rule of law, and militaries subordinate to democratically elected civilian leadership.”
Moise was shot and killed in the predawn hours of July 7 at his private residence in a wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince. His wife, Martine, was injured in the attack and is recovering from surgery at a Miami, Florida, hospital.
Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph told reporters that he has spoken to the first lady several times and that she is doing well.
Haitian National Police Chief Leon Charles said 18 Colombians have been arrested in connection with the assassination.
Colombia’s president told a local radio station Thursday that most of the detained Colombians had been duped into thinking they were to provide bodyguard services for the Haitian leader.
“Once they were over there,” Ivan Duque said, “the information they were given changed,” and the men ended up as suspects in an assassination plot.
New investigation details
Police Chief Charles said five Haitian police officers are currently in isolation because of their alleged involvement in the assassination plot. Investigators are questioning all police officers who were on duty when the attack occurred, he said.
“We have 18 assailants under detention. Three were killed during the attack, and there are five Haitian Americans who we are taking a close look at,” the chief told reporters during a Friday press conference.
“We are working both internally and externally with the assistance of our international partners to move the investigation forward. There are Interpol and FBI agents here on the ground to help us analyze evidence that will help us trace and identify the masterminds,” Charles said.
The chief thanked civilians who had been helping law enforcement find those involved in the assassination. Police have received a lot of helpful tips every day so far, he said.
Matiado Vilme in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this story.
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