At least 70 people were killed in a gang attack against a small town in central Haiti, yesterday. “Members of the Gran Grif gang used automatic rifles to shoot at the population, killing at least 70 people, among them about 10 women and three infants,” UN Human Rights Office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement, adding that the agency was “horrified” by the attack. (Al Jazeera)
Gang members reportedly set fire to at least 45 houses and 34 vehicles, forcing a number of residents to flee, according to the UN, which called for more international security assistance to Haiti. (New York Times)
Experts say the Gran Grif is one of Haiti’s cruelest gangs, reports the Associated Press.
Bodies lay strewn on the streets of Pont-Sondé in the Artibonite region after the attack, many of them killed by a shot to the head, a local activist told Haitian media. Among the victims is a young mother, her newborn baby and a midwife. (AFP)
Videos on social media show people fleeing as news of the attacks spread, reports the Associated Press.
Brazilian Municipal Elections on Sunday
Brazilians head to the polls on Sunday for local elections in 5,570 municipalities. Runoff votes will be held for mayoral races, where necessary, at the end of the month.
Beyond local politics, the results vare widely considered a political thermometer halfway through the presidential mandate, and will have impact on Congressional alliances and interaction between the executive and legislative powers, according to the Brazilian Report.
A negative result for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will hamper his legislative agenda moving forward. (Brazilian Report) At stake also are his chances at reelection next year, of relevance in an anti-incumbent region, argues Juan Manuel Karg in Anfibia.
Centrist Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes is expected to win a fourth term.
One of the most closely watched races São Paulo’s mayoral election, where far-right influencer Pablo Marçal faces off against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s protege Guilherme Boulos and current mayor Ricardo Nunes, backed by former president Jair Bolsonaro. Boulos, former leader of the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), is seen as a potential political heir for Lula. (AFP, Le Monde)
But the talk of the town in SP “a party that’s not on the ballot on Sunday: The “party of crime,” or as it’s formally known, the First Capital Command (P.C.C.),” writes Will Freeman in a New York Times op-ed. “The P.C.C.’s push into politics across the nation has been a shock for many Brazilians. While organized crime has long played a substantial role in local politics in countries such as Colombia and Mexico, this was not as much the case in Brazil until recently.”
More on Brazilian Elections
There 158,000 female candidates participating Sunday’s elections, in a country with one of the lowest levels of female political representation in Latin America, reports the Christian Science Monitor.
Nearly 1,000 transgender politicians are running in Sunday’s elections in every one of Brazil's 26 states. The number of candidacies has tripled since the last local elections four years ago, reports the Associated Press.
“There are more than 6,000 law enforcement officials on the ballots,” many with significant internet followings, raising “concern amongst security experts who warn that some officers share confidential information about special police operations, potentially damaging an already fragile relationship between police forces and vulnerable Brazilian communities,” reports Rest of World.
282 candidates for mayors and councilors will use names or nicknames that allude to Lula or Bolsonaro. (Anfibia)
Social media platforms operating in Brazil, with the exception of YouTube, no longer offer open and free access to their data. “The lack of transparency affects the monitoring of online violence against women,” according to MonitorA, an observatory of digital gender-based political violence. (El País)
Quilombola communities, descendants of runaway enslaved people, are electorally marginalized — Folha de S. Paulo
More Brazil
One of the Amazon River’s main tributaries has dropped to its lowest level ever recorded, reflecting a severe drought that has devastated Brazil, reports the Associated Press.
The river port in the Amazon rainforest's largest city of Manaus hit its lowest level since 1902, today. (Reuters)
Brazil's government established a minimum 15% tax on profits of multinational corporations, by executive order yesterday. (Reuters)
Ecuador state of exception
Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, declared a new state of exception in seven localities, including Quito, in response to an increase in violence. The state of exception, which lasts for two months, limits civil liberties, and permits the military to carry out internal security. It also establishes a nighttime curfew in certain localities. (Deustche Welle)
The government cited the February presidential election as a further justification, reports Infobae.
Chile
In a region where the left and right are for the most part not speaking to each other, “a new book published in Chile is like an oasis in the desert,” writes Brian Winter in Americas Quarterly. The book brought together four Chilean former presidents from across the ideological spectrum to brainstorm long-term policy solutions for the next three decades.
Regional
“Latin America's wealth of hydroelectricity and other renewable energy resources could make the region a major producer of clean hydrogen as the world seeks alternatives to fossil fuels to fight the climate crisis, but some big hurdles lie in the way,” according to Reuters.
Mexico
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum promised to boost renewable energies, and said she will unveil soon an “ambitious energy transition program” aimed at “the reduction of greenhouse gases that cause climate change,” reports the Associated Press.
Regional Relations
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to block a $10 billion lawsuit Mexico filed against leading U.S. gun manufacturers over allegations their commercial practices have contributed to violence there. (Associated Press)
Migration
The U.S. “will not be extending the legal status of tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants who were allowed to fly to the U.S. under a sponsorship program designed to reduce illegal border crossings,” reports CBS News.
Bolivia
A new book by Kate Maclean presents a gendered analysis of the pluri-economy under MAS leadership in Bolivia, centering Indigenous women’s lived experiences — Nacla
Esoterica
Peru “celebrated two decades since the creation of a genetically modified breed of guinea pig, a rodent whose meat has formed a part of the diet of people in the Andean nation for thousands of years.” (Associated Press)
Argentine journalist Carlos Pagni notes the significant overlap between President Javier Milei’s UNGA speech last week and a monologue by fictional President Jed Bartlet. Milei’s communication guru, Santiago Caputo is a known Sorkin fan, though Argentina’s libertarian leader could hardly be farther from the idealized West Wing ideologically. (La Nación, Guardian)