Haiti

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      The Wife of Haiti’s Assassinated President Is Accused in His Killing

      by

      Martine Moïse, the widow of President Jovenel Moïse, was charged by a Haitian judge with conspiring in his assassination. She was seriously injured in the attack.A Haitian judge has indicted 51 people for their roles in the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, including his wife, Martine Moïse, who is accused of being an accomplice, despite being seriously wounded in the attack.A 122-page copy of the indictment by Judge Walther Voltaire that was provided to The New York Times does not accuse her of planning the killing nor does it offer any direct evidence of her involvement.Instead, it says that she and other accomplices gave statements that were contradicted by other witnesses, suggesting that they were complicit in the killing. The indictment also cites one of the main defendants in the case in custody in Haiti, who claimed that Mrs. Moïse was plotting with others to take over the presidency.The accusations echo those contained in a criminal complaint filed by a Haitian prosecutor and submitted to Mr. Voltaire. The official charge against Mrs. Moïse is conspiracy to murder.A lawyer for Mrs. Moïse, Paul Turner, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.But Mr. Turner, who is based in South Florida, had earlier denied the accusations in the criminal complaint.“She was a victim, just like her children that were there, and her husband,” he told The Times. Mr. Turner said his client is in hiding and her current location is unknown to all but a few people.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Overlooked No More: Pierre Toussaint, Philanthropist and Candidate for Sainthood

      by

      This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.In 1849, Mary Ann Schuyler, a wealthy New Yorker, was reminded fondly of her longtime hairdresser, Pierre Toussaint, while visiting a Roman Catholic chapel in Europe. “Send my love to him,” she wrote to her sister, Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee. “Tell him I think of him very often and never go to one of the churches of his faith without remembering my own St. Pierre.”By then, Toussaint, 68, had built a reputation as “the Vidal Sassoon of his day,” as Daniel W. Bristol Jr. wrote in “Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom” (2015): He had mastered the in-vogue hairstyles of the French — powdered hair, or false hair added on — as well as the newly-fashionable chignons and face-framing curls favored by the Americans.A portrait of Mary Ann Schuyler, who was one of Toussaint’s hairdressing clients. She wrote that she enjoyed their conversations as a “daily recreation.”Throughout his life, he was dedicated to the church and to others — donating to charities, helping to finance the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan and risking his life during epidemics to tend to the ill.In 1997, more than a hundred years after his death, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Toussaint “venerable,” the first step on the road to sainthood. Some disagreed with the move, however, because they felt Toussaint did not resist his enslavement either in Haiti or New York and was therefore a poor candidate for sainthood.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      After Help From Kenyan Police Is Blocked, Haitians Ask: What Now?

      by

      As Haiti sank into gang-dominated chaos, Kenya promised to send officers to pacify the streets. Now a court has rejected that plan, and there does not seem to be another.Gangs have taken over entire neighborhoods in Haiti’s capital, and killings have more than doubled in the past year, but for the organizers of the Port-au-Prince Jazz Festival, the show simply had to go on.So while judges an ocean away deliberated whether to send a contingent of officers to pacify Haiti’s violence-riddled streets, festival organizers made do by shortening the length of the event to four days from eight, moving the acts from a public stage to a restricted hotel venue and replacing the handful of artists who canceled.As 11.5 million Haitians struggle to feed their families and ride the bus or go to work because they fear becoming the victims of gunmen or kidnappers, they also are pushing forward, struggling to reclaim a safe sense of routine — whether or not that comes with the assistance of international soldiers.“We need something normal,” said Miléna Sandler, the executive director of the Haiti Jazz Foundation, whose festival is taking place this weekend in Port-au-Prince, the capital. “We need elections.”A Kenyan court on Friday blocked a plan to deploy 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti, the key element of a multinational force meant to help stabilize a nation besieged by murders, kidnappings and gang violence.Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has sunk deeper into turmoil in the nearly three years since the president was assassinated. The terms of all mayors in the country ended almost four years ago, and the prime minister is deeply unpopular largely because he was appointed, not elected, and has been unable to restore order.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump v Biden: how different are their policies on the US-Mexico border?

      by

      AnalysisTrump v Biden: how different are their policies on the US-Mexico border?Alexandra Villarreal in Austin Biden’s immigration promises fall short as some of Trump’s policies remain in place – here’s what’s similar and what’s differentUnder Donald Trump, Americans were confronted with a near-constant onslaught of racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy, especially regarding the US-Mexico border, as the same man who led chants about building a wall there won the 2016 presidential election and took control of the Oval Office for the next four years.Vulnerable migrants were mounting “an invasion”, Trump said. The United States’ asylum system – a key commitment to its humanitarian values – was “ridiculous” and “insane”. Immigrants of color made headlines for supposedly coming here from “shithole” countries, and Mexican immigrants were called drug dealers, criminals and rapists.US turns back growing number of undocumented people after arduous sea journeysRead moreAfter such public vitriol and humanitarian scandals, Joe Biden billed himself as the anti-Trump candidate who would restore honor and decency to the presidency, partly by building a fair and humane immigration system. One of his campaign statements noted: “Most Americans can trace their family history back to a choice – a choice to leave behind everything that was familiar in search of new opportunities and a new life. Joe Biden understands that is an irrefutable source of our strength.”Initially, Biden delivered, with a flurry of executive actions and other first steps to undo Trump’s crackdown. But when the number of people crossing into the US from Mexico without authorization swiftly increased, his more tempered tactics became a political liability, giving Republicans fuel to spin false yet convincing – to some – narratives about an “open” and mismanaged border.Soon, Biden’s top political operatives started pushing him to adopt a more hardline approach, while some of his immigration experts jumped ship, unable to stomach enforcing some of the same Trump-era practices they loathed.Amid such an ideological quagmire, a reactive, confusing and often contradictory immigration agenda has emerged from this administration. And now, new policies are being admonished by advocates – and even some serving Democrats – for seemingly plagiarizing Trump’s very own playbook, without meaningful input from Congress or organizations on the ground.So is the Biden White House simply a more politically correct Trump 2.0 on immigration at the US-Mexico border? We compare and contrast.Enforcing deterrenceMuch of both Trump and Biden’s border strategies are predicated on the notion that if the US government erects enough barriers and gets rid of enough incentives, people will stop trying to come.Thus far, that theory hasn’t really panned out – the US has continued to experience record-breaking numbers of migrants and asylum seekers at its south-west boundary, despite decades of presidents pursuing this paradigm of prevention through deterrence. But, at a border that is already hyper-politicized, hyper-policed and hyper-surveilled, the last two administrations have still largely relied on the enforcement-focused infrastructures and blueprints inherited from their predecessors.Recently, the Biden administration announced it would step up expedited removal, despite having previously rescinded Trump’s own sweeping expansion of these fast-tracked deportations. Under the practice, migrants can be swiftly repatriated without ever seeing a judge.Biden officials have also said they will be proposing a new rule to further limit asylum eligibility, a move that has incited anger among advocates who already fought similar bans under Trump.Expelled to dangerThe most infamous through-line between Trump and Biden’s approaches to people arriving at the US-Mexico border today has been both administrations’ controversial use of a health law to deny millions of migrants and would-be asylum seekers the opportunity to ask for protection, seemingly in violation of their rights domestically and internationally.Many people subjected to this policy – often referred to by its shorthand, Title 42 – have been stranded in or expelled to dangerous conditions in Mexico, or else swiftly returned to the unstable and sometimes life-threatening realities at home that many of them risked life and limb to escape. Others die trying to circumvent closed-off points of entry.The Trump administration invoked Title 42 ostensibly as a public health measure during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic and used it to quickly expel hundreds of thousands of people – including nearly 16,000 unaccompanied children.Biden stopped applying the aggressive policy to unaccompanied kids but has continued to expel individuals and families. Many stuck in Mexico because of Title 42 have subsequently been murdered, raped or kidnapped, with more than 13,480 reports of violent attacks during Biden’s presidency alone.Although the Biden administration eventually announced it was planning to end Title 42 restrictions last year, pending litigation has kept them in place for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, even as officials publicly argue against reliance on the policy, they have expanded its use multiple times, abruptly, to target Venezuelans and now also Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans.Those policy changes have been accompanied by the creation of limited legal pathways, but their eligibility requirements demand a level of financial resources and international connections that the western hemisphere’s most vulnerable, forcibly displaced people likely cannot produce.“Do not just show up at the border,” Biden warned potential migrants. “Stay where you are and apply legally from there.”Families, still separatedPart of Trump’s enduring legacy is tied to being the president who separated families at the US-Mexico border and threw “kids in cages” for days or weeks, often with little communication or information provided to keep track of them.In 2018, Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy shook liberals and conservatives alike as they learned about terrified children being ripped from the arms of parents who were now being prosecuted. Trump was eventually forced to end these hyper-visible family separations, but he continued to advance hardline practices that adversely affected children and families seeking help at the US’s south-west boundary, whether stranding young kids in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody or in hazardous Mexican border towns.Biden, by contrast, has stopped holding migrant families in Ice detention, so far. He also resumed programs that allow some from the Caribbean and Central America to reunite with family members in the US, and a task force is still trying to reconnect families separated by the Trump administration.Yet even as Biden tries to clean up Trump’s mess, de facto family separations continue. Unaccompanied children are exempt from Title 42, so some parents make the difficult choice to send their kids across the border alone, even when that means indefinite time apart.Love across the border: a couple’s 13-year quest to be reunited in the USRead moreThe bottom lineSo are Biden’s border policies turning into a copy of Trump’s?The reality is more nuanced, with a long history of bad approaches to humanitarian migration across presidents and some positive moves toward solutions from Biden, bolstered by a different rhetoric, new alternative legal pathways and attempts at more efficient processing.Yet parallels exist. Most notably, both administrations have done devastating harm to millions of forcibly displaced people, who came here looking for safety and opportunity only to become victims of a system that has left them stranded and vulnerable.And with Biden now shifting to the center and immigration looming as a liability issue in the 2024 presidential election for Democrats – most of whom get sucked into the xenophobic right-wing narrative without figuring out how to defend the benefits of the American melting pot – progressives, advocates – and millions of migrants – should brace for a tough foreseeable future.TopicsUS immigrationUS-Mexico borderUS politicsBiden administrationTrump administrationNicaraguaHondurasanalysisReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden finally heads to border as critics condemn his migrant crackdown

      by

      Biden finally heads to border as critics condemn his migrant crackdown Advocates attack president’s failure to uphold campaign pledges ahead of first visit to southern border since he took officeUnder pressure to address a surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border, Joe Biden announced a far-reaching crackdown on migrants seeking asylum last week, expanding the use of a controversial public health measure known as Title 42 to restrict people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela from illegally entering the US, while offering those legally seeking relief a new pathway to America.Before the president’s first trip to the US-Mexico border since he took office in 2020, immigration advocates condemned the Biden administration’s decision to expand Title 42 as disheartening and a failure to uphold his campaign promises. They took some solace in the creation of a legal pathway to asylum for those in four countries, but still, for them, Biden’s actions were not enough – they leave out other migrants, and the parole program is beset by requirements that impose significant barriers to migrants without access to resources, perpetuating inequities within the US immigration system.In other words, immigration advocates say, the cost of expanded expulsion of migrants under the guise of public health without a clear path to asylum outweighs the promise of expanded refugee access and a legal outlet for asylum. “For a lot of us working in immigration justice, at the start of the administration, there was incredible hope that Title 42 would end and push forward to re-establish access to asylum,” the director of the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Justice Campaign, Alex Miller, said. “We’ve been disappointed.”The Biden administration’s so-called “carrot and stick” approach aims to deter the historic-high millions of migrants fleeing persecution from their home countries and seeking US asylum from entering the country illegally. Federal figures from the 2022 fiscal year show that US border agents stopped migrants more than 2m times along the southern border, setting an all-time record. They turned migrants away under the Title 42 provision more than 1m times.“The problem is the carrot is not universally accessible,” Miller added. “Legal access to asylum will be limited to those who are the right nationalities, have the right means and support, to apply for parole … The sticks they are offering are restricting access, and that’s not a fair trade.”Under the Biden administration’s new policy, if migrants from those countries pass background checks, buy a plane ticket, obtain financial sponsorship, and meet other requirements, they would be allowed to legally enter under the “parole program”. They would be authorized to live and work in the US for two years.But immigration advocates worry about the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed rule – which they say is similar to the Donald Trump White House’s “transit ban” – because it would make migrants seeking asylum ineligible if they failed to seek protection in a third country before reaching the US and if they “circumvent available, established pathways to lawful migration,” as homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week.They also worried that the parole program’s requirements – modeled after the administration’s approach to refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Ukraine – impose barriers to migrants who lack the resources to buy flights and find a financial sponsor.On Twitter, United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led rights group, slammed Biden’s new policy “a racist and classist attack” on migrants. United We Dream’s deputy director of federal advocacy, Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s expansion of Title 42 would hurt “the same people seeking asylum that they purport to protect”.The American Civil Liberties Union’s director of border strategies, Jonathan Blazer, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s “knee-jerk expansion of Title 42 will put more lives in grave danger”, adding that his plan “ties his administration to the poisonous anti-immigrant policies of the Trump era instead of restoring fair access to asylum protections”.“His commitments to people seeking safety will ring utterly hollow if he moves forward in substituting one illegal anti-asylum Trump policy for another,” Blazer said.Miller told the Guardian that the administration’s new proposals include allowing asylum seekers to use an app in English and Spanish to schedule appointments. That, the administration argues, will reduce “wait times and crowds at the US port of entry and allow for safe, orderly, and humane processing”. Miller said that effort makes the legal asylum seeking process harder for migrants who lack technological access and speak indigenous dialects beyond Spanish as well as for those who cannot obtain legal representation to help them navigate the process.Biden has said that Congress needs to enact a more comprehensive immigration reform. In the interim, the administration’s new parole process, which he described as “safe, orderly” and humane, would “make things better but will not fix the border problem completely”.The National Immigration Law Center’s vice-president of law and policy, Lisa Graybill, told the Guardian that while the administration’s creation of the asylum that gives 30,000 people access is better than nothing, its overall approach reflects seeing immigration enforcement and creating outlets for asylum as a “zero-sum game”. It’s a mistake presidents and politicians have made before, she said.She added that Biden had been “following an old playbook that does not work” by allocating resources toward enforcement rather than creating a “humane and orderly processing system that is built around recognizing the right to asylum instead of violating it”. Instead, the parole program as designed, she said, will hurt impoverished migrants and those who fled their countries in haste without meeting all requirements, acting as barriers to even those who have legitimate asylum claims while helping middle and higher income migrants with access to resources.The chief adviser for policy and partnerships at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Angela Kelley, said that Biden’s creation of the parole program was “smart” and reflected an attempt to use the “tools in his toolbox and use them in more creative ways”. She pointed out that the Biden administration aimed to triple the number of refugees resettled seeking asylum from Latin American and Caribbean countries. Yet, she added, the outdated US immigration laws have not kept up with who qualifies for asylum, such as those fleeing the damaging effects of climate change.“That’s the difference maker: under Trump, it was all about kicking out people – they were systematic in dismantling the refugee program, legal immigration channels of people coming for employment for families, for students. That’s not the approach of the Biden administration,” Kelley said, noting that it will take time to see the effects Biden’s actions will take on the migration system. “They’re restoring all of that. The unfortunate continued reliance on Title 42 is a monkey on their back that they have to figure out how to shake and use the resources you have … to try [to] manage the migration of people the best you can.”Title 42’s future is uncertain as the US supreme court in December stopped Biden’s administration from ending the program to give the justices more time to weigh in on whether states have the legal grounds to intervene in an ongoing case over the program.Kelley, who had previously done immigration work for Biden and the Barack Obama White House, saw the expansion of its Title 42 program as “worrisome” for vulnerable migrants who would be sent back to dangerous conditions in Mexico. She noted that by creating legal pathways to asylum, the administration is trying to “to ease the pressures” at the US border in the hope that they wouldn’t need the pandemic program any longer.“What is heartbreaking is that in an effort to limit the number of people who are coming, you are turning away asylum seekers, who are the migrants you want to protect,” Kelley said.Immigration advocates and Biden agree that long-term changes needed to come from Congress – a questionable prospect given that the Republican-controlled House struggled to elect its speaker, and past bipartisan efforts at immigration reform had also failed.Even so, some advocates say now it’s a question of where resources are sent: They called for more resources to be directed toward assisting nonprofits and NGO groups working with asylum seekers at the border, hiring more asylum officers and more immigration judges, and investing in more legal assistance for migrants unable to afford private attorneys.“For three years under Title 42, access to asylum has been undermined,” Miller said. “All of the documented evidence of kidnapping, rape, and extortion of migrants in Mexico, in particular at the border – it’s incredibly troubling that we’re expanding the expulsions of migrants to Mexico.“These are not just numbers, these are people with individual stories with their own lives they’re trying to defend. It’s really easy to get lost in the big picture. We’re talking about people here.”TopicsUS immigrationUS politicsUS-Mexico borderVenezuelaHaitiCubaNicaraguanewsReuse this content More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Turning Pregnant Women and Doctors Into Criminals

      by

      More from our inbox:A Piercing Inquiry Into the History of Haiti’s PlightA Self-Fulfilling Election Prophecy? Ben HickeyTo the Editor:In “Punishing Women Who Have Abortions” (Opinion, Sunday Review, May 15), Jane Coaston mentions the possibility being discussed in some anti-abortion circles of charging those who have abortions with homicide. There is another way some in the anti-abortion camp speak of punishing women who seek abortions, in this case very ill women — letting them die.This is not a majority position in the anti-abortion movement, but it is not a new idea. In 1984, Paul Weyrich, an influential conservative activist, stated, in explaining his opposition to exceptions to abortion bans in cases of threats to a woman’s life: “I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life. The person who has had an opportunity to live at least has been given that gift by God and should make way for new life on earth.”In the likely event that the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and about half the states ban abortion, it is in the realm of possibility that extremist politicians in some of these states will be successful in blocking any exceptions whatsoever. Doctors in those states will be placed in a horrible position, facing years of jail time if they abort the fetus, and women will die needlessly.Carole JoffeSan FranciscoThe writer is a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.To the Editor:An important problem in criminalizing abortion is frequently overlooked: policing it.New York County abortion trial transcripts in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice archives (1883-1927) show that because illegal abortions invariably took place in private locations — usually the home of the doctor or midwife who performed the abortion — the authorities had to rely on unsavory detection methods.These included threatening the hospitalized victims of botched abortions with arrest unless they named and testified against their abortion providers; making deals for leniency with pregnant women arrested for unrelated crimes if they agreed to help entrap a suspected abortion provider; and setting up elaborate sting operations with women employed by the police.Even with the more sophisticated surveillance methods available today, law enforcement personnel will often be obliged to rely on entrapment to prosecute abortion providers in states where abortion is illegal. The surprising number of acquittals in the historic abortion cases I have studied suggest that entrapment can be distasteful to jurors. Entrapment methods may also have a demoralizing, demeaning and potentially corrupting effect on the police.Elisabeth GitterNew YorkThe writer is emerita professor of English and interdisciplinary studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.To the Editor:I’d like to see an article about “How Will We Punish Men Who Don’t Support Women Who Have the Pregnancies.” We are still focused on the women, but now we have the technologies to identify the fathers and expect them to fully support the children they conceive. Would this change the dynamics of pregnancy, abortions and support? You bet it would.Janice WoychikChapel Hill, N.C.A Piercing Inquiry Into the History of Haiti’s PlightAn illustration depicting plantations burning in 1791, during the Haitian Revolution.Universal Images Group, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Your comprehensive May 22 special section on Haiti, “The Ransom,” was eye-opening. It showed that debt is a tool of the rich comparable to slavery — and has been throughout history.But the special section, sadly, also shows the limits of talking about reparations as justice. Even if the French government paid Haiti back all that it took, with interest, the resulting payment would scarcely account for the lost opportunities and social dislocations caused by its aggression.Andrew OramArlington, Mass.To the Editor:When I arrived in Haiti for the first time, in 1996, I had already been in a number of poverty-stricken countries in this hemisphere. There were similarities, of course, but the depth and pervasiveness of impoverishment and the unreliability or absence of the most basic physical and governmental infrastructure were on a scale I had not previously encountered.It was not surprising that Haitians felt that they had little control over their lives — lives spent in surviving day to day.How did it come to this? Your series “The Ransom” provides well-researched, convincing answers to that question.George Santayana warned that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We cannot heed that warning if that past is not known to begin with. Now that the reality of that Haitian history is more widely known, will it continue to be repeated?John CosgroveLumberton, N.J.The writer is professor emeritus in the Graduate School of Social Service at Fordham University.A Self-Fulfilling Election Prophecy?To the Editor:Current reporting from many Democratic and Republican pundits presumes that Republicans will take over the House and the Senate in the November elections. No doubt they base this prediction on polling and the historical results of midterm elections. Perhaps they are right, but perhaps not.While such a prediction serves the Republicans well, for the Democrats, it’s toxic. An attitude of “it’s all over but the voting” has the potential to discourage Democrats from bothering to vote, turning that presumption into a self-fulfilling prophecy.Mary-Lou WeismanWestport, Conn. More

    • 75 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Your Monday Briefing: Australia’s New Leader

      by

      Plus President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Good morning. We’re covering a change of power in Australia, President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Anthony Albanese, the next prime minister of Australia.Jaimi Joy/ReutersAustralia’s incoming Labor leaderPrime Minister Scott Morrison conceded defeat to Anthony Albanese, the incoming Labor prime minister, ending nine years of conservative leadership.The opposition Labor party made the election a referendum on Morrison’s conduct. Albanese, whose campaign was gaffe-prone and light on policy, promised a more decent form of politics, running as a modest Mr. Fix-It who promised to seek “renewal, not revolution.”Voters were most focused on cost-of-living issues, but the election was also about climate change, Damien Cave, our bureau chief in Sydney, writes in an analysis. Australians rejected Morrison’s deny-and-delay approach, which has made the country a global laggard on emission cuts, for Albanese’s vision of a future built on renewable energy.Details: In Australia, where mandatory voting means unusually high turnout, voters did not just grant Labor a clear victory. They delivered a larger share of their support to minor parties and independents who demanded more action on climate change — a shift away from major party dominance.Food: Elections in Australia come with a side of “democracy sausage” hot off the barbecue, a beloved tradition that acts as a fund-raiser for local groups and makes the compulsory trip to the voting booth feel less like a chore and more like a block party.President Biden being greeted by Park Jin, South Korea’s foreign minister.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Biden visits Asian alliesOn his first trip to Asia as president, Joe Biden attempted to strengthen ties with allies rattled by Donald Trump’s erratic diplomacy and wary of Beijing’s growing influence.In Seoul on Saturday, he met with President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was inaugurated 11 days prior, and criticized Trump’s attempts to cozy up to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s dictator. Biden and Yoon will explore ways to expand joint military exercises that Trump sought to curtail in a concession to Kim. Today in Tokyo, Biden will unveil an updated trade agreement that seeks to coordinate policies but without the market access or tariff reductions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump abandoned five years ago. The less sweeping framework has some in the region skeptical about its value.Context: Russia’s war in Ukraine snarled Biden’s original strategy of pivoting foreign policy attention to Asia. The trip is an effort to reaffirm that commitment and demonstrate a focus on countering China.Heavy rainfall flooded streets in Bangalore, India, on Friday.Jagadeesh Nv/EPA, via ShutterstockHeavy floods in India, BangladeshMore than 60 people were killed, and millions more were rendered homeless as heavy pre-monsoon rains washed away train stations, towns and villages.Extreme weather is growing more common across South Asia, which has recently suffered devastating heat waves, as the effects of climate change intensify.This year, parts of northern and central India recorded their highest average temperatures for April. Last year, extreme rainfall and landslides washed away sprawling Rohingya refugee camps overnight in Bangladesh, and in 2020, torrential rains submerged at least a quarter of the country.Context: India and Bangladesh are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their proximity to the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. The tropical waters are increasingly experiencing heat waves, which have led to dry conditions in some places and “a significant increase in rainfall” in others, according to a recent study.Details: The Brahmaputra, one of the world’s largest rivers, has inundated vast areas of agricultural land, villages and towns in India’s remote, hard-hit northeast.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaThe Taliban have also urged women to stay home unless they have a compelling reason to go out.Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesThe Taliban are aggressively pushing women to wear burqas and crushing rare public protests against the order.Protests continue in Sri Lanka, as citizens demonstrate against a president they blame for crashing the economy.The U.N.’s top human rights official will visit Xinjiang, where Beijing has cracked down on the Uyghur minority, and other parts of China this week. Activists say the trip holds significant risks for the credibility of her office.Some Chinese people are looking to emigrate as pandemic controls drag into their third year.The WarRussian forces attempted to breach Sievierodonetsk’s defenses from four directions but were repelled, a Ukrainian official said.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHere are live updates.Russia renewed its attack on Sievierodonetsk, one of Ukraine’s main strongholds in the Donbas region. Its forces are also trying to cross a river in the region despite having suffered a major blow there this month.In a rare acknowledgment, a Kremlin minister said that sanctions have “practically broken” the country’s logistics.Profile: The Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion.Atrocities: The Times is documenting evidence of potential war crimes, like killings in Bucha, some carried out by a notorious Russian brigade. A Times visual investigation shows how Russian soldiers executed people there.World NewsThe U.S. has surpassed one million Covid deaths, according to The Times’s database.The coalition that replaced Benjamin Netanyahu is crumbling — potentially leading to new Israeli elections that could return him to power.Iran is cracking down on its filmmakers, arresting leading artists in what analysts see as a warning to the general population amid mounting discontent.Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson and Aidy Bryant are leaving “Saturday Night Live.”Tornadoes in western Germany killed one person and injured dozens more, while an unusual heat wave struck parts of Spain and France.A Morning ReadResty Zilmar recently had to return to a more urban area for work.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesFor decades, young Filipinos have left rural areas in pursuit of economic success, leading to overcrowded cities. The pandemic temporarily reversed that pattern, and many enjoy rural life. If the government makes good on stated efforts to reinvigorate the hinterlands, the shift may stick.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4On the ground. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Haiti Opposition Group Calls on U.S. to End Support for Current Government

      by

      With tensions rising, many see Monday as a deadline for the government to step down.A powerful Haitian opposition group is demanding the United States withdraw its support for the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry in Haiti, saying the administration’s legitimacy is tarnished by delayed elections and Mr. Henry’s potential connection to the assassination of the country’s president.The opposition group, called the Montana Accord, has called for the United States to act by Monday — the date on which President Jovenel Moïse had vowed to step down, before he was gunned down in his home last year. The government will be rendered unconstitutional by Monday, according to the Montana Accord and independent experts.The showdown has left the Biden administration in an increasingly uncomfortable position. Afraid that Haiti may slip further into chaos, the United States for now is supporting the status quo: a ruling party that has governed for about a decade and seen the power of gangs explode across the country and corruption run rampant.“When we look at the history of Haiti, it is replete with the international community reaching into Haitian politics and picking winners and losers,” Brian Nichols, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in January. “Our goal in terms of the U.S. government is to avoid that.”As doubts mount that the Henry administration can hold elections this year, anti-government demonstrations have erupted throughout Port-au-Prince, the capital, and local gangs have used the moment of rising uncertainty to expand their territory.Adding to the instability, gangs stormed the airport road on Friday, shutting down businesses and putting Haiti’s police force on high alert in anticipation of more violence on Monday.The Montana Accord has called for the formation of a transitional government, with its leader, Fritz Alphonse Jean, at the helm to restore security before ultimately holding elections. By continuing to support the current government, the group says, the United States is essentially choosing a side.“Insecurity is rampant, fear of kidnapping and rape are the everyday situation of the average Haitian,” Mr. Jean said in an interview on Friday. “This is a state of disarray and the Henry government is just sitting there unable to address those challenges.”A roadblock a day before the funeral of Jovenel Moise in Cap-Haitien last July.Federico Rios for The New York TimesAnalysts acknowledge that a transitional government led by the Montana Accord would also be unconstitutional. But they say it would have more legitimacy than the Henry government because the group — made up of civil society organizations and powerful political figures — represents a wider array of the population than the current government, which was voted in with an abysmally low turnout.“What’s the most constitutional government you can have at the moment? The short answer is zero,” said Alexandra Filippova, a senior staff attorney at the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, a think tank focused on improving the justice system.“So the next best question is, what moves you closer to a legitimate constitutional government? We see that the Montana group is a flawed process but is the best way forward to creating a path for a legitimate government.”Senior American officials have urged the Montana Accord to work with Mr. Henry’s government to chart a path forward, and acknowledge that the group is an important partner in achieving a broadly representative political system to help steer the country toward elections.Mr. Henry has said the next government must be formed through elections, not a transitional government.The Montana Accord contends, however, that Mr. Henry has not created a feasible blueprint to improve security and to hold free and fair elections safely amid widespread gang violence, surging corruption and a disillusioned Haitian population.Adding to the distrust, Mr. Henry may also be implicated in Mr. Moïse’s killing, opposition members say.In September, Haiti’s top prosecutor claimed the prime minister was in touch with the chief suspect in Mr. Moïse’s death in the days before and hours after the assassination. The prosecutor asked the justice minister to charge Mr. Henry formally in the assassination. Mr. Henry swiftly fired both officials.Phone records obtained by The New York Times and an exclusive interview with another suspect in the assassination also bolster those accusations. Mr. Henry has denied the allegations.“The whole system is not trustworthy,” Monique Clesca, a member of the Montana Accord, said. “There is no way you can go to elections with Ariel Henry; nobody trusts him after this assassination.”Electing a new transitional president for the Montana Accord in Port-au-Prince last month.Ralph Tedy Erol/ReutersSo far, American officials have dismissed the accusations against the prime minister while urging the government and the Montana Accord to achieve a consensus. Mr. Henry, a senior American official said in an interview this month, is viewed as a caretaker and does not have the United States’ unconditional support.Average Haitians are skeptical that either the government or the opposition can improve their lives.“There’s nothing to expect from the decision makers, they always look out for themselves,” said Vanessa Jacques, 29, an unemployed mother.Ms. Jacques described a feeling of insecurity so deep that it has paralyzed her life, preventing her from attending university or running errands.“Living in Haiti, you have to look out for yourself, or no one else will,” she said.Recent presidential elections in Haiti have been plagued with problems and unrepresentative of the population. Mr. Moïse was elected in 2016 with only 600,000 votes, of a population of nearly six million eligible voters. His predecessor, Michel Martelly, was elected in a controversial election in which the United States was accused of intervening on his behalf.Still, many Haitian leaders see elections as the only path forward.“Elections are a must,” said Edmond Bocchit, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States. “Now it’s a matter of when and how are we going to get together to get it done.”While some business leaders in Haiti say Mr. Henry has questions to answer regarding Mr. Moïse’s assassination, they add that he has been able to keep the situation from unraveling and also achieved an important goal: raising fuel prices. Fuel subsidies have nearly bankrupted the state, and the previous government was unable to remove them without setting off riots.A road intersection near a street market in Pétionville last September amid insecurity and gas shortages.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“The country has to keep moving,” said Wilhelm Lemke, the president of the​​ Haitian Manufacturers Association. “And they’ve kept it from unraveling,” he said, but Mr. Henry needs to reach out to the opposition to form a more representative government. He stressed that Mr. Henry had to sit down with the opposition to reach a broader political accord.But “the prime minister should address the inferences that he may be part of the assassination and all that. By not addressing it, you’re bringing water to your detractors,” he said. “And you’re diluting your moral authority.”Chris Cameron More