Members of Haiti’s brand new transitional presidential council, that will be responsible for selecting a new prime minister issued their first official statement yesterday, promising to restore “public and democratic order” in the country, in the throws of a violent gang insurrection.
The statement was signed by eight members of what was designed as a nine-member council. Nonetheless, the message “is still considered a sign that a contentious and drawn-out nomination process is ending and that the council might soon assume its official duties,” according to the Associated Press.
Widlore Mérancourt, the editor-in-chief of Haiti’s Ayibo Post, tells the Guardian’s Today in Focus that for the first time he fears for his life while reporting from Port-au-Prince, such is the violent chaos there.
There is growing concern in Kenya over plans to lead a security mission to Haiti, where gang violence has pushed thousands of Haitian officers to abandon their posts fearing for their lives, reports the Guardian.
Kenya said deployment is contingent on international funding — but “the United States, which supports the deployment and is the largest financial backer of the Haiti National Police, has struggled to raise the money,” reports the Miami Herald.
In the meantime U.S. is “trying to get more weapons, ammunition and protective gear into the hands of Haiti’s beleaguered police force,” reports the Miami Herald.
More Haiti
Haiti’s humanitarian crisis is acute, the Miami Herald reports on some of the numbers, including the nearly 5 million people in the country facing severe hunger and the 33,000 people who have fled the capital in the past three weeks of gang warfare.
Colombia and Argentina spar
Colombia expelled Argentine diplomats from the country, in response to what it called "denigrating" comments by Argentine President Javier Milei about Colombian President Gustavo Petro. In a recent interview with CNN, which has not yet been aired in full, Milei called Petro a "terrorist," "murderer" and "communist," reports Reuters. (The full interview with Andres Oppenheimer will be aired on Sunday, Infobae.)
In January, Colombia recalled its ambassador to Argentina after similar comments from Milei who called Petro a “murderous communist who is sinking Colombia,” reports Al Jazeera.
Guatemala
El Faro reports on the persecution of community journalists in Guatemala, including Q’eqchi’ Mayan journalist Carlos Choc, “the face of Mining Secrets, an investigation published in March 2022 by 17 news outlets on three continents that analyzed leaked documents from the Guatemalan Nickel Company, confirmed the mine’s environmental contamination, and revealed the cooptation of the Guatemalan state and intimidation of critics.”
More Regional Relations
“Given the massive global goodwill Lula encountered upon returning to the presidential palace in Brasília, one cannot help but lament the many missed opportunities of his foreign policy,” writes Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly.
Season 4 of the “Serial” podcast, nearly a decade in the making, tells an insider history of the infamous Guantanamo military prison. (New York Times)
Ecuador
The murder of a young mayor in Ecuador last weekend spotlights how “Ecuador’s gangs use violence to sway public officials who refuse to be corrupted by bribes. They have been able to penetrate the country’s institutions partly because of the state’s failure to protect these officials,” according to InSight Crime.
Migration
Mexico’s crackdown on immigration in recent months — at the urging of the Biden administration — has hit Venezuelans especially hard, they are increasingly stuck in Mexico, a development that “highlights how much the U.S. depends on Mexico to control migration,” reports the Associated Press.
Venezuela
Venezuelan presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, one of the few who was able to register to participate in July’s elections, said he would hand his slot on the ballot to a consensus candidate if the Plataforma Unitaria Democrática finds one able to surpass government obstacles, reports Efecto Cocuyo.
Argentina
“A court in Argentina has convicted 11 former military, police and government officials of crimes against humanity committed during the country’s last dictatorship in a sprawling trial that heard, for the first time, about atrocities suffered by trans women,” reports the Guardian.
There is a striking resemblance between Argentine President Javier Milei’s discourse and that of the international business elite, “particularly by those who in the age of social media have anointed themselves or been anointed by public acclaim as popular philosophers of progress,” writes David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times. “Many of the world’s richest people have rapidly become some of the most outspoken critics of the establishment and status quo, which they believe is almost uniformly arrayed against them.”
Milei determined a new formula to adjust pensions for interest by decree, but opponents say it reifies a tremendous loss of purchasing power since the start of the year. Since 2008, each new government has changed the formula for adjusting pensions, and retirees always lose (albeit by varying amounts), reports El País.
Culture Corner
Argentine journalist and political activist Rodolfo Walsh was disappeared by the country’s last dictatorship — so was his last short story, read only by his partner and a detainee at a clandestine detention center. “Juan se iba por el río is a story that, along with its author, is missing. We can know its content thanks to the voice of those who survived the horror and told about it. Do we know the content? Or do we know a version of what Lilia and Martín remember? Our historical heritage, our collective memory, is based on these stories,” writes Celeste Abrevaya in Revista Anfibia.
How Japan is preaching the gospel of baseball in Brazil, where many believe it is largely a Japanese sport — New York Times
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