Author: ITam

Peruvian officials say a bus carrying 63 passengers went off a cliff along a main highway in the Andes mountains, plunging into an abyss and killing at least 29 people in the early hours of Tuesday, authorities said. Police told Peruvian media the incident happened near the town of Matucana, along a narrow stretch of Peru’s Central Highway, a corridor that connects the capital, Lima, to much of the central Andes. Senior police officials told Peruvian television the bus collided with a rock and went over the cliff. Witnesses at the scene said the fall was at least 100 meters. Police officials say they believe the bus was traveling at a reckless rate of speed, but the accident remains under investigation. The accident is the second involving a bus plunging from a road in Peru in a matter of days. On Friday, a bus carrying miners in a different part of the Andes also drove off a cliff, killing 16. The two incidents are unrelated, although bus plunges are not uncommon in Peru, especially in the Andes. The mountain range traverses the length of the country, and its highways are often dangerous, overlooking tall cliffs. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.  
 
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Three prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center are expected to get their first day in court after being held for 18 years in connection with the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and other plots in Southeast Asia.Indonesian prisoner Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali, and two Malaysians are to be arraigned Monday before a military commission on charges that include murder, conspiracy and terrorism. It is merely the first step in what could be a long legal journey for a case that involves evidence tainted by CIA torture, the same issue that is largely responsible for causing other war crimes cases to languish for years at Guantanamo.The hearing also comes as the Biden administration says it intends to close the detention center, where the U.S. still holds 39 of the 779 men seized in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and invasion of Afghanistan.The three men charged in connection with the nightclub bombings were held in secret CIA confinement for three years, followed by 15 more at the isolated U.S. base in Cuba.The decision to charge them was made by a Pentagon legal official at the end of the Trump administration, complicating the effort to close the detention center, said Brian Bouffard, a lawyer for Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, one of the Malaysian men.That made it more difficult for the new administration to add any to the list of those who could potentially be transferred out of Guantanamo or even sent home. “It will even be harder after an arraignment,” Bouffard said.Whether the arraignment would actually take place was not certain. Lawyers have sought to put the case on hold for a number of reasons, including what they have said is insufficient access to interpreters and other resources to mount a defense. The accused were still expected to show up for the hearing.The Navy judge presiding over the case in the commission, a hybrid of military and civilian law, is expected to consider that question before the charges can be formally presented in a secure courtroom surrounded by coils of razor wire on the base.Nurjaman was a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant group with ties to al-Qaida. The U.S. government says he recruited militants, including bin Lep and the other Malaysian charged in the case, Mohammed Farik bin Amin, for jihadist operations.Among the plots that al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah carried out were the October 2002 suicide bombings of Paddy’s Pub and the Sari Club in Bali, Indonesia, and the August 2003 suicide bombing of the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta, Indonesia. The attacks together killed 213 people, including seven Americans, and injured 109 people, including six Americans. Dozens of victims were foreign tourists, mostly Australians.Prosecutors allege bin Lep and the other Malaysian, Mohammed Farik bin Amin, served as intermediaries in the transfer of money used to fund the group’s operations.All three were captured in Thailand in 2003 and transferred to CIA “black sites,” where they were brutalized and subjected to torture, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in 2014. In 2006, they were moved to Guantanamo.It’s unclear why it’s taken so long to charge them before the military commission. Military prosecutors filed charges against the men in June 2017, but the Pentagon legal official who oversees Guantanamo cases rejected the charges for reasons that haven’t been publicly disclosed.The case has many elements that make it complex, including whether statements the men made to authorities can hold up in court because of the abuse they experienced in CIA custody, the fact that people have already been convicted, and in some cases executed, in Indonesia for the attack, and the long time it has taken to even bring charges — much less get to a trial at some point in the future.Some of these same issues have come up in the case against five Guantanamo prisoners charged for planning and aiding the Sept. 11 attacks. They were arraigned in May 2012 and remain in the pretrial phase, with no trial date yet scheduled.Bin Amin’s lawyer, Christine Funk, predicted a lengthy period of defense investigation that will require extensive travel, once the pandemic is over, to interview witnesses and look for evidence. Still, she said, her client is “anxious and eager to litigate this case and go home.”
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Hurricane Ida made landfall in the U.S. Gulf Coast state of Louisiana Sunday as a Category Four storm, with 240-kilometer-per hour winds on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. The storm’s arrival comes 16 years after Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught. As Arash Arabasadi reports, memories of Katrina still loom large. 
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Hurricane Nora is churning northward up Mexico’s Pacific Coast toward the narrow Gulf of California, after making a sweep past the Puerto Vallarta area.Authorities in Mexico’s Jalisco state, where Nora made a brief landfall Saturday night crossing the cape south of Puerto Vallarta, said there were no early reports of serious damage. But forecasters warned that people along Mexico’s central and northern Pacific Coast should be alert to the dangers of flooding, mudslides and perilous surf.Nora had maximum sustained winds of 120 kph late Saturday, with tropical storm force winds extending out 165 kilometers. It was centered about 85 kilometers north-northwest of Puerto Vallarta and heading to the north at 26 kph.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Nora was likely to keep dragging along the coast and gradually weaken to a tropical storm by Sunday night before entering the Gulf of California, passing close to the mainland resort area of Mazatlan.The storm was predicted to keep moving north up the gulf, before weakening further to a tropical depression and heading inland toward the Arizona border region. The storm’s remnants could bring heavy rains by midweek to the U.S. Southwest and central Rockies, the hurricane center said.The center said some areas along the west coast of Mexico could see rainfall totals from 20 to 30 centimeters with even more in isolated spots.
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Several hundred migrants, including many children, headed north from near Mexico’s border with Guatemala on Saturday hoping to reach the U.S., but Mexican security forces dispersed the group several hours later.About 300 Haitians, Cubans and Central Americans set out on foot from the town of Tapachula, and a few hundred more migrants joined in as the walk progressed.After about eight hours, they passed through an immigration checkpoint without problems, but then National Guard troops in riot gear blocked their way as a heavy rain fell. Some of the migrants were arrested while others eluded capture and kept heading north. By Saturday night about 200 had arrived the town of Huixtla, said the Rev. Heyman Vazquez, a priest who works with migrants.Immigration agents also helped break up the group. An Associated Press journalist saw one immigration agent kick a migrant who was already immobilized and on the ground.The Collective of Monitoring and Documentation of Human Rights of the Southeast, which is a coalition of groups that work with migrants, said some people were injured though it gave no numbers. It said the detained migrants had been loaded on buses and driven away.The flow of migrants from Central America has increased since the beginning of the year and in recent days despair had grown especially among the Haitian community stranded in Tapachula. This week they began to demonstrate seeking to speed up their immigration procedures and threatened to leave in a caravan if Mexican officials did not pay attention to them.The group that started out Saturday was the biggest one this year and recalled the caravans that occurred in Mexico before the pandemic and the big formation that tried to leave Honduras in January but that was blocked from crossing Guatemala.The Mexican government has insisted this week that it will continue with its policy of containing migrants. Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said Friday that the main goal of the deployment of the army, navy and National Guard is to “stop all migration.” He said more than 14,000 military and National Guard personnel are deployed in Mexico’s south.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned of torrential rains, life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides as Hurricane Nora made landfall on Saturday evening on the northwest coast of the Mexican state of Jalisco.After making landfall near Vicente Guerrero, the Category 1 hurricane has continued northward near the coast, NHC said.Videos posted on social media showed storm surges flooding roads and fierce winds lashing buildings and downing trees.Hurricane warnings have been issued for coastal stretches of the states of Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco, the agency said.”Nora is expected to produce rainfall totals of 8 to 12 inches (20-30 centimeters) with maximum amounts of 20 inches (50 centimeters) this weekend into early next week,” according to the NHC’s latest advisory. “This rainfall will produce life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides.”The agency also warned that swells generated by the hurricane could produce “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” on the southern and southwestern coast of Mexico.As of 8 p.m. EST, Nora was about 48 kilometers south southwest of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, packing maximum sustained winds of 129 kph.From the western coast of Mexico, the hurricane is then projected to approach and move into the Gulf of California on Sunday and Monday.  
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As Haiti recovers from a quake that struck the country nearly two weeks ago, relatives bury a girl near the ruins of her house. She’s among the more than 2,200 people killed by the 7.2 magnitude quake. Elsewhere, women say they fear for their safety and that of their children. More with VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo.
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Cuba has introduced new controls over online content deemed to affect national interests, in a move described as “Orwellian” by independent media and activists.Decree 35 was passed last week, following the biggest anti-government protests in decades, as Cubans called for better living conditions amid economic hardship and the pandemic. Details of the unrest spread in part because of social media.The new law is aimed at content or messages that Havana deems to be false news, offensive or that may incite acts “that upset public order.” Under it, anyone who tries to “subvert the constitutional order” will be considered a cyberterrorist.  A special channel also has been set up for citizens to inform on anyone who breaks the law.”Our Decree 35 goes against misinformation and cyber lies,” Reuters quoted Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel as saying.The Cuban president blamed the July 11 protests on an online campaign that he said was led by U.S.-backed counter-revolutionaries.  So far, the penalties for breaching the regulations have not been made public, but it is believed the government would fine offenders, a Cuba-based journalist who requested anonymity, said.FILE – Police detain an anti-government demonstrator during a protest in Havana, Cuba, July 11, 2021.‘Orwellian’ measuresIndependent media within Cuba and analysts have said the decree is similar to the totalitarianism described in George Orwell’s novel 1984, in which Big Brother controls every aspect of citizens’ lives.“This decree is a way of silencing any critical voices in Cuba, which may have existed after 62 years of communist rule,” Normando Hernandez, of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press, told VOA. The Miami-based organization supports opposition media on the island.“It is a way to kill off all liberty of expression. It means even if you call a meeting, this can be construed as cyberterrorism. Any content that the government construes as against the government can be seen as a crime,” he said.No arrests under the law have been reported. But Hernandez said that many Cubans already are fearful of violating the legislation, and they are avoiding posting on social media platforms.Bertrand De La Grange, chief editor in Madrid for independent Cuban website 14ymedio, said the new decree is “Orwellian.”“They are trying to create the same totalitarian world as George Orwell described in 1984 or Animal Farm,” he told VOA.De La Grange said the government introduced further restrictions on free speech in response to the biggest demonstrations since the 1990s, which in part were caused by criticism over the high coronavirus rate.  “The fact the regime is doing this shows it is on the defensive. It is not solving any of the major problems. The COVID-19 situation is much worse than the official media say,” he added.FILE – Police scuffle with anti-government demonstrators during a protest in Havana, Cuba, July 11, 2021.As of Thursday, Cuba has more than a half-million confirmed cases and 4,500 deaths from COVID-19, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University. Its new case rate is estimated at 9,376 a day over the past week.De La Grange said 14ymedio and other independent media had managed to circumvent controls because Havana does not operate a total block on the internet in the way that China does.“This decree is a way to try to punish those who publish what the regime calls ‘fake news’ but it is what we know is the true situation,” said De La Grange.Under the new decree, the state telecommunications company can suspend access to the internet for those found to have broken the new law.Journalist Camila Acosta said that despite the regulations, Havana could not prevent millions of Cubans from accessing social media.“They can charge independent journalists like me – I have had five telephones confiscated this year alone – but they cannot possibly control millions of Cubans who access social media all the time. It is impossible,” said Acosta, who works for the news website Cubanet, and for the Spanish daily ABC.Acosta was arrested after reporting on the July demonstrations and has been placed under house arrest for six months while police investigate her case.Cuba Detains, Questions Dozens of Journalists Over Protest Coverage ‘They tried to intimidate me,’ says Cuban journalist who was detained for a week in Havana and is now under house arrest “This will make my job more difficult, but they have introduced previous legislation to attack the free media so this is not new. What is new is that it is an attempt to stop people organizing demonstrations,” Acosta told VOA from her home in Havana.‘Digital repression’Since the introduction of mobile internet a bit more than two years ago, platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram have allowed Cubans to air complaints.Havana insists that it permits free speech as long as it is “within the revolution.” But Decree 35 has alarmed Cuba civil rights campaigners, who say it uses vague language regarding what information internet users should provide to the government.The law says users should grant public security institutions the “technical facilities and services they require” and give the Communications Ministry the “information that (the ministry) determines.””We have to see the context of this. Cuba has already introduced legislation to restrict the activities of journalists and activists,” said Amnesty’s Americas director Erika Guevara-Rosas, referring to a law passed in 2019. “This new decree is not sending out a message to them, it is sending a message to the general Cuban population.” “It wants to strengthen a culture of fear among anyone who might be thinking of organizing protests or complaining about the fact you have to stand in line for hours to get basics in Cuba,” Guevara-Rosas told VOA.The communist government wanted to “formalize digital repression” in a country in which it already controls all aspects of life, Guevara-Rosas said. U.S. lawmakers, including Senator Marco Rubio, as well as foreign diplomats in Havana, have criticized the new measure.“What the dictatorship doesn’t realize is that the Cuban people have lost all fear to voice their opinions, they’ve realized the despotic nature of the regime and aren’t afraid of protesting against over 60 [years] of repression,” Rubio told VOA.Congress this month passed an amendment co-sponsored by the Republican senator from Florida to provide Cubans uncensored access to the internet.“It is now in the [U.S.] president’s hands to act upon what Congress has approved,” Rubio said.British Ambassador to Cuba Antony Stokes also voiced concern at the decree, tweeting, “Harassment, detentions against peaceful protesters, trials without due process and censorship embodied today by Decree Law 35 silence legitimate voices and violate international conventions.”
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During a surprise visit to survey earthquake damage in Haiti on Thursday, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power announced an additional $32 million in assistance for victims.”I am pleased here to announce that USAID will provide an additional $32 million as part of a broader American response to support people here affected by the earthquake,” Power told reporters during an afternoon press conference at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince.A 7.2 magnitude earthquake devastated cities in Haiti’s southwest on Aug. 14. Later that day, U.S. President Joe Biden named Power as the senior administration official to coordinate the American post-quake relief effort.Power told reporters she flew over the hardest-hit towns.”Today we had a chance to witness the impact of the earthquake and the response firsthand,” she said. “First we flew over the affected terrain. And just to see the mountains, the narrow roads, many of which were damaged or blocked with landslides, is to be reminded of the challenge of accessing many, many parts of the affected area.”Power said she had also visited the rural town of Maniche.”We stopped in Maniche and spoke with families who have been devastated by the earthquake,” she said. “According to the mayor of Maniche, of the 9,800 homes in that area, more than 5,000 were destroyed.”Power expressed concern about a “completely flattened” school, whose condition will disrupt education for hundreds of students at the start of the school year. She said she also visited a partially damaged health clinic that was “overwhelmed by need.””The needs we experienced in Maniche are being experienced, as you well know, by many families in this country,” Power said.Earthquake survivors in remote southern towns have criticized the U.S. for paying too much attention to larger cities while their needs remain unattended to.A man stands in the front yard of his home, which was completely destroyed by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Maniche, Haiti, Aug. 19, 2021. (Jean Handy Tibert/VOA)To adjust its relief effort, USAID held an hourlong online discussion with members of the Haitian diaspora in the United States on Wednesday, hearing their complaints and suggestions.Sarah Charles, assistant to the administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, told participants that aid workers were having trouble reaching remote towns in the mountains.”One of the challenges that we have right now — and I think why you’re seeing more of that assistance flow to some of the bigger towns and villages right now — is because … there are some very remote communities, particularly on some of the hillsides, that I think, to be perfectly frank, I don’t think we have reached,” Charles said.Citing security concerns, she added that USAID was relying heavily on barge and air “assets,” including helicopters, to move supplies to the area.”Because of some of that insecurity on the road from Port-au-Prince into Les Cayes in particular, it is impacting, I believe, the speed at which we’re able to get out to some of those smaller villages,” Charles said.During her press conference, Power lauded the Haitian USAID surge staff who took part in the immediate post-quake relief effort in concert with the Haitian Civil Protection first responders.”We have been able to assist or rescue through medevac more than 450 Haitians and, using U.S. government assets, deliver more than 200,000 pounds of vital aid,” Power said.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Thursday that Tropical Storm Ida in the Caribbean Sea was likely to become a major hurricane and reach the United States on Sunday.In its latest advisory, the center said an Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter plane determined that Ida had formed and was about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west-southwest of Jamaica, moving northwest about 22 kph (14 mph).The storm had maximum sustained winds of about 65 kph (40 mph). Forecasters said they expected it to strengthen into a hurricane as it moves to the west of Cuba and into the southern Gulf of Mexico.”There is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge, damaging hurricane-force winds, and heavy rainfall Sunday and Monday, especially along the coast of Louisiana,” the hurricane center said.Forecasters fear dramatic strengthening as the storm moves over the Gulf of Mexico. On her Twitter account, Mississippi State University atmospheric scientist Kim Wood said the storm track would take it over the warmest waters in the gulf.She said the water in the area was about 30 degrees Celsius to a depth of 40 meters. “I don’t have words for that,” she said in the tweet.Such extremely warm waters favor rapid strengthening after Ida enters the gulf Friday.Forecasters said that while there was still a great deal of uncertainty, the forecast track would take the storm into Louisiana, which was hit hard by three major hurricanes last year. The hurricane center was already warning of a “life-threatening” storm surge when the storm makes landfall and the potential for damaging winds and flooding rain.Forecasters said the storm track was still coming into focus and could shift in the next several days. They urged concerned citizens in the potential path to continue to watch the storm’s movement.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center says a tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea is likely to strengthen into a major hurricane that could threaten southern parts the United States on Sunday.
 
In its latest advisory, the center says the tropical depression about 180 kilometers south-southwest of Jamaica is moving to the northwest and is expected to continue in that direction over the next few days.  
 
The storm system has maximum sustained winds of about 55 km/h but forecasters expect it to strengthen into what will be known as Tropical Storm Ida (and then a hurricane) as it moves to the west of Cuba and into the southern Gulf of Mexico.  
 
Forecasters fear dramatic strengthening as the storm moves over the Gulf of Mexico. On her Twitter account, Mississippi State University atmospheric scientist Kim Wood said the storm track will take it over the warmest waters in the gulf.
 
She said the water in the area is about 30 degrees Celsius to a depth of 40 meters. “I don’t have words for that,” she said in the tweet.
 
Such extremely warm waters favor rapid strengthening after Ida enters the gulf Friday.  
 
Forecasters say that while there is still a great deal of uncertainty, the forecast track would take the storm into Louisiana, which was hit hard by three major hurricanes last year. The hurricane center is already warning of a “life-threatening” storm surge when the storm makes landfall and the potential for damaging winds and flooding rain.  
 
Forecasters say the storm track is still coming into focus and could shift in the next several days. They urged concerned citizens in the potential path to continue to watch the storm’s movement.
 
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Vesta Guerrier survived Haiti’s massive earthquake this month, but it flattened her home and she has since been living at a makeshift camp fearing she could be raped at any time. “We’re not safe,” she told Agence France-Presse, echoing the worry of other Haitian women all too aware of the sexual violence that has followed the disaster-plagued nation’s previous calamities.   Home for Guerrier, her husband and three children was a flimsy shelter made of sticks and plastic sheets at a sports center in the hard-hit town of Les Cayes, on the peninsula southwest of the capital Port-au-Prince. Vesta Guerrier, 48, poses for a portrait at a camp for people who lost their homes during the Aug. 14 earthquake, in Les Cayes, Haiti, Aug. 23, 2021.”Anything can happen to us,” said Guerrier, 48, “especially at night. Anybody can enter the camp.”  The 7.2-magnitude quake that struck August 14 killed over 2,200 people but also destroyed or heavily damaged tens of thousands of homes in a nation still recovering from a devastating quake in 2010. After the tremor 11 years ago, which killed over 200,000 people, some survivors spent years in makeshift shelters where victims were assaulted by armed men and gangs of youths who roamed the poorly lit, overcrowded camps after dark. More than 250 cases of rape were recorded in the roughly five months after the 2010 disaster, according to a 2011 Amnesty International report that noted many advocacy groups considered that a small fraction of the true number.  About 200 people were living at the same camp as Guerrier, where privacy is next to impossible. Because of her worries about being attacked, Guerrier does not entirely remove her clothing to bathe and always waits until dark to wash so that others cannot see her. When light does fall on her in the darkness of the camp, she is left wondering if it’s just one of her neighbors, or if it’s “someone who wants to do what he wants to do,” she added. There were no functioning toilets at the site, which makes Guerrier afraid and embarrassed because “people can see you from every direction.” “Only the girls can understand what I’m telling you. We women and the little ones who are here, we suffer a lot,” she said.  A woman and kids rest in the shade at a camp for people who lost their home during the Aug. 14 earthquake in Les Cayes, Haiti, Aug. 23, 2021.Other evacuees at the camp also revealed their fears.  “We are afraid. We are really afraid for our children. We need tents so we can go back to living at home with our families,” said Francise Dorismond, who is three months pregnant.  Another makeshift camp has popped up a short distance away from the main site due to the risks of attacks.  Pastor Milfort Roosevelt said “the most vulnerable” have been placed there.  “We protect the young girls. In the evening, we have set up a security team that patrols throughout the night and ensures that no young men commit violence against these women,” explained the 31-year-old.  In the ruins of a former nightclub destroyed by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, dozens of people were taking shelter in a tangle of sheets and tarps strung between walls.  In the middle of this maze, young mother Jasmine Noel tried to make a bed for her 22-day-old baby to sleep in.  “The night of the earthquake, I was going to sleep on the field next door, but they told me that with my baby, it was not right, so they welcomed me here,” Noel said.  “Some people always try to take advantage of these kinds of moments to do wrong,” she said, adding that her suffering makes it feel like she is no longer “really living.” “Our bodies are here, yes, but our souls are not,” said Noel, hoping her mother, a street vendor, would have made enough that day to buy food for them. 
 
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Garry Orelien, the judge named to oversee the investigation into the slaying of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, is being criticized as inexperienced and incapable of handling the case.     Orelien replaces Judge Mathieu Chanlatte, who resigned August 13, citing personal reasons. One of Chanlatte’s assistants died under unclear circumstances the day before his resignation, The Associated Press reported.  Moise was shot to death inside his home in a luxury suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince, in the early morning hours of July 7. His wife, Martine Moise, was injured and later transferred to Florida for treatment.  The Haitian National Police (PNH) has arrested dozens of people in connection with the case, including Haitian Americans, Colombians, members of the president’s security detail and police officers.  Orelien previously worked as a substitute judge in Saint Marc and Croix-des-Bouquets, Le Nouvelliste newspaper reported. He was moved to the Port-au-Prince court in December 2020.  Rockfeller Vincent, Haiti’s minister of justice and public security, tweeted Monday that he was making available all necessary resources to Judge Orelien to move forward with the case. “Let me be clear: All efforts will be made to arrest all individuals implicated in this crime,” he tweeted. Le MJSP a mis à la disposition du Juge d’instruction Gary Orélien tous les moyens nécessaires à la bonne conduite du dossier de l’assassinat du Président Jovenel MOÏSE. Que ceci soit clair : Tous les efforts seront déployés pour arrêter tout individu impliqué dans ce crime. 1/3— Rockfeller Vincent (@RockfellerVinc1) Haitian gang leader holds voodoo ritual for assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moise in Port-Au-Prince, July 27, 2021.In an exclusive interview with VOA Creole Monday, Marie Rosy Auguste Ducéna, a lawyer and human rights activist, alleged that the national police are deeply implicated in the killing.  She mentioned Joseph Felix Badio, a former Haitian Justice Ministry official who has a warrant out for his arrest, as having made at least two phone calls to Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Ducéna told VOA that Badio made the phone calls on the morning that Moise was killed.  “I’d like to underline that there are 647 police officers whose principal mission is to protect the president. We can say they failed, since the president was assassinated,” Ducéna told VOA. “Secondly, there were 63 agents detailed to provide security for the president, and they had backup agents whose responsibility it was to secure the perimeter of the president’s residence. However, they allowed the commandos to gain access to the home. Why? Because they had been paid off.”  The RNDDH report also alleges that PNH Director General Leon Charles received two urgent phone calls from Moise the day of his assassination, but the report says Charles never responded.  VOA Creole’s calls to Henry and Charles requesting comment were not answered.  In Washington, Ricardo Zuniga, U.S. special envoy for the Northern Triangle at the State Department’s Bureau for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told VOA that the United States is still assisting Haiti with the Moise investigation.    “What we have is a promise from the United States to contribute to and collaborate with the Haitian officials leading the investigation,” Zuniga, speaking Spanish, told VOA Monday. “What is important going forward is that this be a Haitian-led effort. So, the United States, along with our international partners, will continue to do whatever we can to help the Haitian officials move forward with the case.”     Asked by VOA if U.S. President Joe Biden plans to invite Henry to the White House for talks, Zuniga instead addressed the recent earthquake in Haiti, which killed more than 2,200 people.   “Right now, the focus of the new prime minister and the Biden administration is dealing with the current crisis,” Zuniga said of the post-earthquake recovery effort. “So, it’s clear that we need to collaborate in order to relieve the suffering of the Haitian people. That is our focus.”     Meanwhile, in Port-au-Prince, ordinary citizens are expressing doubt about whether Moise’s killer will ever be brought to justice.   Contributed to this report Cristina Caicedo Smit, Jacquelin Belizaire.      Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Five members of an Afghan girls robotics team have arrived in Mexico after evacuating from their home country. The girls landed in Mexico City on Tuesday night and were welcomed at the airport by Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. “We received the first applicants for humanitarian status in Mexico from Afghanistan,” Ebrard tweeted late Tuesday. “They are part of a robotics team from that country and uphold a dream: a world with gender equality.”An Afghan woman, member of the Afghanistan Robotic team, is seen during a press conference after her arrival to Mexico after asking for refuge, at the Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, on August 24, 2021.The robotics team made up of girls and women as young as 14 years old gained attention in 2017 when they traveled to the United States to take part in an international competition. Last year, they worked to develop an open-source, low-cost ventilator as hospitals in many countries faced shortages of equipment to help coronavirus patients. The Associated Press quoted one team member Tuesday saying the team was grateful to Mexico “for saving our lives.” She said that thanks to Mexico’s actions, “our story will not end in a sad way” because of the Taliban. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Many survivors of an earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people in southern Haiti are worried about providing for their children, with more than half a million minors feared to be at risk from the fallout.The August 14 quake hammered infrastructure, destroying or damaging some 130,000 homes, cutting off roads and pitching thousands of families in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country into an uncertain future.When the magnitude 7.2 quake struck, Lovely Jean was resting inside the general hospital of the southern city of Les Cayes, while her 3-day-old baby, Love Shaiska, was in the neonatal ward being treated for an infection.Les Cayes was one of the areas worst hit by the quake, and as the hospital walls trembled, Jean sent her husband, Pierre Alexandre, to grab the infant while she fled the building.”The earth was shaking, and I was crying, so scared of what was happening,” the 24-year-old said, cradling her child on the porch of their damaged home in a tiny village outside the town of Camp-Perrin, northwest of Les Cayes.The three survived, though the hospital suffered damage that forced some of its departments, including the neonatal ward, to operate outside for days after the disaster.But the problems were only beginning for Jean and her husband, a subsistence farmer.Alexandre’s fields were buried by landslides during the earthquake and rain unleashed by Tropical Storm Grace, which pummeled Haiti last Tuesday. His entire potato and yuca crops are unreachable, leaving the family with barely any food to eat.More than a dozen other parents who spoke to Reuters in the quake zone expressed similar concerns about how they would cope.More than half a million children were affected by the earthquake, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said.The temblor claimed the lives of at least 2,207 people, injured 12,268 more and left 344 missing, according to Haitian authorities.Still, there are a few encouraging developments. Late on Sunday, civil protection authorities said 24 people who had been reported missing, including four children, had been found and taken by helicopter to Camp-Perrin to be looked after.Recovery efforts have been impeded by flooding and damage to roads, feeding tensions in hard-hit areas. In the past few days, residents have looted aid trucks in several towns across the south, stirring concerns about security.Deep in the mountains of Haiti’s southern peninsula, in the department of Grand’Anse, near the town of Duchity, about a hundred farmers are living in slender tents of wooden poles and bedsheets they erected along the highway. The quake destroyed their homes, crops and the deep concrete-lined holes used to collect and store rainwater.Now, with scant food and water, many of the young children suffer from hunger, fevers and infections, said Evelya Michele, a mother of five living in the encampment.At least a dozen children had broken out in rashes.”The children are very vulnerable; there is no water so we can’t even wash them to keep them clean,” Michele said.Her older children had taken off earlier that morning, walking to a nearby village in search of food.”I didn’t send them; they just left without even asking me because they are hungry,” she said.
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A fire on an offshore platform operated by Mexican oil and gas giant Pemex has left at least five people dead, two missing and six injured, the state-run company said Monday.The blaze led to the suspension of work at more than 100 oil wells that rely on the platform for electricity and injections of natural gas, Pemex said.The accident occurred Sunday in the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico during maintenance work.One of the injured was in serious condition, Pemex chief Octavio Romero told a news conference.”The exhaustive search for the missing persons continues,” he said.The fire put 125 oil wells out of action, resulting in a production loss of 425,000 barrels a day, but they were expected to be restarted by Tuesday, Romero said.The company has been trying to arrest a steady decline in its oil production, which fell from an average of 3.4 million barrels a day in 2004 to 1.7 million bpd in 2020.Pemex said it had launched an investigation into the blaze, which it said was brought under control after an hour.Pemex is battling back from what it called the worst crisis in its history last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.The group lost about $23 billion in 2020 due to a slump in demand for energy that caused oil prices to briefly turn negative for the first time.A recovery in prices helped it make a profit of about $720 million in the second quarter of 2021.
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