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US bans flights to Haiti as gang violence rages

US bans flights to Haiti as gang violence rages
FILE PHOTO: A person walks outside Toussaint Louverture International Airport after airlines suspended flights, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti October 25, 2024. (Reuters/File)
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Updated 13 November 2024
AFP
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US bans flights to Haiti as gang violence rages

US bans flights to Haiti as gang violence rages
Updated 13 November 2024
AFP
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PORT-AU-PRINCE: The United States on Tuesday banned all civilian flights to Haiti for a month, a day after a jetliner was shot at on approach to the capital and as a new prime minister took the reins of a nation ravaged by poverty and gang violence.
The US Federal Aviation Administration’s move came after a Spirit Airlines jetliner arriving from Florida in Port-au-Prince was hit by gunfire and had to reroute to the Dominican Republic.
Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime was sworn in on Monday, replacing outgoing premier Garry Conille, who was appointed in May but became embroiled in a power struggle with the country’s unelected transitional council.
On Tuesday, Haiti remained cut off from the rest of the world, with its main airport closed and bursts of gunfire ringing out in several neighborhoods of the capital.
Many stores and schools were shuttered as people feared more attacks by the powerful and well-armed gangs that control 80 percent of the city, even though a Kenyan-led international force has been deployed to help the outgunned Haitian police restore order.
Violent crime in the capital city remains high, with gang members routinely targeting civilians and robberies, rapes and kidnappings are rampant.
The attack on the Spirit Airlines aircraft saw one flight attendant suffer minor injuries. Images posted online appeared to show several bullet holes inside the plane.
The transitional council, aiming to put Haiti on a path to voting in 2026, had been tasked with stabilizing a country that has no president or parliament and last held elections in 2016.
The United States on Tuesday called on Haiti’s leaders to put personal interests aside and concentrate on getting the country back on its feet.
“The acute and immediate needs of the Haitian people mandate that the transitional government prioritize governance over the competing personal interests of political actors,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Haiti has not had a president since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in 2021.
The Caribbean nation has long struggled with political instability, poverty, natural disasters and gang violence.
But conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the capital, saying they wanted to overthrow then-prime minister Ariel Henry.
Despite the arrival of the Kenyan-led support mission in June, violence has continued to soar.
A recent United Nations report said more than 1,200 people were killed in Haiti from July through September, with persistent kidnappings and sexual violence against women and girls.
The report said the gangs were digging trenches, using drones and stockpiling weapons as they change tactics to confront the Kenyan-led police force.
Gang leaders have strengthened defenses for the zones they control and placed gas cylinders and Molotov cocktail bombs ready to use against police operations.

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Notre Dame reopens five years after shocking blaze

Notre Dame reopens five years after shocking blaze
Updated 07 December 2024
AFP
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Notre Dame reopens five years after shocking blaze

Notre Dame reopens five years after shocking blaze
  • Parisians watched in horror in 2019 as flames ravaged Notre Dame, a landmark famed as the setting for Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and one of the world’s most visited monuments
Updated 07 December 2024
AFP

PARIS: Notre Dame will formally reopen Saturday five years after the Paris cathedral was devastated by fire, with US president-elect Donald Trump among world leaders there to celebrate its remarkably rapid restoration.
Held up as an example of French creativity and resilience by President Emmanuel Macron, Notre Dame’s renaissance so soon after a 2019 blaze that destroyed its roof and spire comes at a difficult time for the country.
The sense of national accomplishment in restoring a beloved symbol of Paris has been undercut by political turmoil that has left France without a proper government and in a budget crisis.
Macron is hoping that the first full service inside Notre Dame and the sight of around 40 world leaders in Paris might provide a fleeting sense of pride and unity — as the Paris Olympics did in July and August.
The re-opening “is the proof that we know how to do grand things, we know how to do the impossible and the whole world has admired us for it on two occasions this year,” Macron said during a televised address on Thursday, referring to the widely praised Olympics.
During a visit with TV cameras last week however, he somewhat undermined the suspense behind the reopening, revealing the cathedral’s freshly scrubbed limestone walls, new furniture and vaulted wooden roof cut from ancient oak trees selected from the finest forests of France.
The reconstruction effort has cost around 700 million euros ($750 million), financed from donations, with the re-opening achieved within five years despite predictions it could take decades.
Workers had to overcome problems with lead pollution, the Covid-19 epidemic, and the general overseeing the project falling to his death while hiking in the Pyrenees last year.

While the reborn 12th-century architectural masterpiece will be the main focus of public attention on Saturday, TV cameras are also likely to linger on Trump who will be making his first overseas trip since winning re-election to the White House last month.
He accepted an invitation from Macron to attend earlier this week, saying the French leader had done “a wonderful job ensuring that Notre Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so.”
US President Joe Biden will be represented by his wife Jill, while Britain’s Prince William and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will also be present.
Zelensky is expected to seek his first face-to-face meeting with Trump who has vowed to force a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine, possibly by withholding US weapon supplies.
One surprising absentee will be Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, who has decided against breaking off from a weekend trip to the French island of Corsica.
A message from Francis addressed to the French people will be read out to the congregation of VIPs, church figures and selected members of the public when the service begins on Saturday evening.

Parisians watched in horror in 2019 as flames ravaged Notre Dame, a landmark famed as the setting for Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and one of the world’s most visited monuments.
The apocalyptic images were even seen by some as a sign of the demise of Western civilization, with the 850-year-old wonder saved from complete collapse only by the heroic intervention of firefighters.
The exact cause of the blaze has never been identified despite a forensic investigation by prosecutors, who believe an accident such as an electrical fault was the most likely reason.
“We felt a sense of universal sadness when Notre Dame burned,” said fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who has dreamed up colorful new priestly vestments that will be worn by senior clergy on Saturday.
“It was a moment of terrible emotions, like a premonition of our world in difficulty,” he told AFP recently.
The service will feature prayer, organ music and hymns from the cathedral’s choir, followed by a televised concert with performances by Chinese piano virtuoso Lang Lang, South African opera singer Pretty Yende and possibly US singer and fashion designer Pharrell Williams.
Harsh weather forced officials to move Macron’s planned speech indoors and pre-record the concert Friday night, with forecasts for winds of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour as Storm Darragh put parts of France on red alert.
On Sunday, the first mass with 170 bishops and more than 100 Paris priests will take place at 10:30am (0930 GMT) followed by a second service in the evening at 6:30pm which will be open to the public.
 

 

Topics: Notre Dame Cathedral France

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US Supreme Court to weigh bid to sue Palestinian authorities over attacks

In this file photo taken on March 31, 2012 the US Supreme Court building is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (AFP file)
In this file photo taken on March 31, 2012 the US Supreme Court building is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (AFP file)
Updated 07 December 2024
Reuters
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US Supreme Court to weigh bid to sue Palestinian authorities over attacks

In this file photo taken on March 31, 2012 the US Supreme Court building is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (AFP file)
  • US courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad
Updated 07 December 2024
Reuters

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide the legality of a 2019 federal statute meant to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities by Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel and elsewhere. The justices took up appeals by President Joe Biden’s administration and a group of American victims and their families of a lower court’s ruling that this law violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to due process under the US Constitution.
The law is called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.
The Supreme Court is expected to hold arguments in the case and rule by the end of June. Its decision to hear the case comes during the Gaza war in which Israel launched an air and ground assault on the Hamas-ruled enclave after Palestinian militants stormed Israeli border communities in October 2023.
US courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad. Under the language at issue in the 2019 law, the PLO and Palestinian Authority would automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conduct activities in the United States or make payments to people who attack Americans. The plaintiffs in the litigation before the Supreme Court include families who in 2015 won a $655 million judgment in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organizations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004. Officials and employees of the two organizations planned, directed and participated in these attacks, according to the plaintiffs. The Manhattan-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the award in 2016, finding that American courts lacked jurisdiction over the Palestinian defendants. Congress subsequently passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, and new litigation was brought by the families as well as by relatives of Ari Fuld, a Jewish settler in the Israel-occupied West Bank who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian in 2018. A New York-based federal judge in 2022 ruled that the law was unconstitutional because of due process violations. Congress, US District Judge Jesse Furman wrote, “cannot simply declare anything it wants to be consent.” Plaintiffs asked the 2nd Circuit to revive their claims, but it refused, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.
“We’re encouraged by the court’s acceptance of the case for review, and our families are looking forward to restoration of the judgment in their favor and a long-overdue measure of justice for the horrific attacks against them,” said Kent Yalowitz, a lawyer representing families in the case.
A lawyer representing the two Palestinian organizations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
 

 

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza US

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South Korean president says he won’t seek to impose martial law again, ‘truly sorry’ for anxiety

South Korean president says he won’t seek to impose martial law again, ‘truly sorry’ for anxiety
Updated 07 December 2024
AP
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South Korean president says he won’t seek to impose martial law again, ‘truly sorry’ for anxiety

South Korean president says he won’t seek to impose martial law again, ‘truly sorry’ for anxiety
  • The Defense Ministry said it had suspended the defense counterintelligence commander, Yeo In-hyung, who Han alleged had received orders from Yoon to detain the politicians
Updated 07 December 2024
AP

SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea’s president said he’s “truly sorry” for causing public anxiety with his declaration of martial law earlier this week, and promised not to make another attempt to impose it.
President Yoon Suk Yeol made a public apology in a brief televised address Saturday morning, hours ahead of a parliamentary vote on a motion to impeach him.
Yoon said he won’t shirk legal or political responsibility for the declaration, adding that he will leave it to his conservative party to map out measures to stabilize politics, “including matters related to my term in office.”
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
SEOUL, South Korea: South Korean lawmakers are set to vote later Saturday on impeaching President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived attempt to impose martial law, as protests grew nationwide calling for his removal.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the motion submitted by opposition lawmakers would get the two-thirds majority required for Yoon to be impeached. But it appeared more likely after the leader of Yoon’s own party on Friday called for suspending his constitutional powers, describing him as unfit to hold the office and capable of taking more extreme action, including renewed attempts to impose martial law.
Impeaching Yoon would require support from 200 of the National Assembly’s 300 members. The opposition parties that jointly brought the impeachment motion have 192 seats combined.
That means they would need at least eight votes from Yoon’s People Power Party. On Wednesday, 18 members of the PPP joined a vote that unanimously canceled martial law 190-0 less than three hours after Yoon declared the measure on television, calling the opposition-controlled parliament a “den of criminals” bogging down state affairs. The vote took place as hundreds of heavily-armed troops encircled the National Assembly in an attempt to disrupt the vote and possibly to detain key politicians.
Parliament said Saturday that it would meet at 5 p.m. It will first vote on a bill appointing a special prosecutor to investigate influence peddling allegations surrounding Yoon’s wife, and then on impeaching Yoon.
The turmoil resulting from Yoon’s bizarre and poorly-thought-out stunt has paralyzed South Korean politics and sparked alarm among key diplomatic partners, including neighboring Japan and Seoul’s top ally the United States, as one of the strongest democracies in Asia faces a political crisis that could unseat its leader.
Opposition lawmakers claim that Yoon’s martial law declaration amounted to a self-coup and drafted the impeachment motion around rebellion charges.
The PPP decided to oppose impeachment at a lawmakers’ meeting, despite pleas by its leader Han Dong-hun, who isn’t a lawmaker and has no vote.
Following a party meeting on Friday, Han stressed the need to suspend Yoon’s presidential duties and power swiftly, saying he “could potentially put the Republic of Korea and its citizens in great danger.”
Han said he had received intelligence that during the brief period of martial law Yoon ordered the country’s defense counterintelligence commander to arrest and detain unspecified key politicians based on accusations of “anti-state activities.”
Hong Jang-won, first deputy director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, later told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that Yoon called after imposing martial law and ordered him to help the defense counterintelligence unit to detain key politicians. The targeted politicians included Han, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung and National Assembly speaker Woo Won Shik, according to Kim Byung-kee, one of the lawmakers who attended the meeting.
The Defense Ministry said it had suspended the defense counterintelligence commander, Yeo In-hyung, who Han alleged had received orders from Yoon to detain the politicians. The ministry also suspended Lee Jin-woo, commander of the capital defense command, and Kwak Jong-geun, commander of the special warfare command, over their involvement in enforcing martial law.
Former Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, who has been accused of recommending Yoon to enforce martial law, has been placed under a travel ban and faces an investigation by prosecutors over rebellion charges.
Vice Defense Minister Kim Seon Ho, who became acting defense minister after Yoon accepted Kim Yong Hyun’s resignation on Thursday, has testified to parliament that it was Kim Yong Hyun who ordered troops to be deployed to the National Assembly after Yoon imposed martial law.

 

Topics: South Korea

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Scholz says a joint Ukraine approach can be found with Trump

Scholz says a joint Ukraine approach can be found with Trump
Updated 07 December 2024
Reuters
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Scholz says a joint Ukraine approach can be found with Trump

Scholz says a joint Ukraine approach can be found with Trump
Updated 07 December 2024
Reuters

FRANKFURT: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is confident he will be able to agree with US President-elect Donald Trump on a joint strategy for Ukraine after speaking to him on the phone, Scholz told the Funke group of newspapers.
“I am confident that we can develop a joint strategy for Ukraine. My guiding principle remains that nothing can be decided without giving the Ukrainian people a say,” he told the paper in an interview.
He added he had spoken with the future US president “in detail” and that his team was in a direct exchange with Trump’s security advisers.
Ukraine is shaping up as a major issue in campaigning for Germany’s snap election in February, which follows the collapse last month of Scholz’s three-party governing coalition in Berlin.
Friedrich Merz, the conservative opposition leader who is on course to unseat Scholz, has said Germany should send Taurus cruise missiles. Scholz has opposed such a move, saying it could escalate the war.
Scholz on Monday announced new military aid for Ukraine during a rare visit to Kyiv that he said sent a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Berlin would stand by Kyiv for as long as needed in the war.
 

In California’s ‘earthquake country,’ a 7.0 temblor prompts confusion and a tsunami warning

In California’s ‘earthquake country,’ a 7.0 temblor prompts confusion and a tsunami warning
Updated 07 December 2024
AP
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In California’s ‘earthquake country,’ a 7.0 temblor prompts confusion and a tsunami warning

In California’s ‘earthquake country,’ a 7.0 temblor prompts confusion and a tsunami warning
Updated 07 December 2024
AP

SAN FRANCISCO: Valerie Starkey was driving through Northern California to visit relatives when she suddenly felt shaking and feared her car had broken down, only to realize later that it was an earthquake so powerful that it triggered a tsunami warning for hundreds of miles of the US West Coast.
The epicenter of Thursday’s 7.0 magnitude shaker occurred in what’s known as California’s “earthquake country” because it’s where three tectonic plates meet. The temblor was the most powerful to rattle the state since a 7.1-magnitude quake hit Ridgecrest in 2019.
Its intensity shocked Starkey and many of the 5.3 million other people along nearly 500 miles (805 kilometers) of the California and Oregon coasts who were under the tsunami warning for about an hour. It was lifted after no major waves arrived.
“I thought my axles had fallen apart,” said Starkey, a Del Norte County supervisor representing Crescent City, a town of fewer than 6,000 near the Oregon border. “That’s what I was feeling ... ‘My axles are broken now.’ I did not realize it was an earthquake.”
The quake struck at 10:44 a.m. west of Ferndale, a small city in coastal Humboldt County, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) from the Oregon border, the US Geological Survey said. The shaking knocked items off grocery store shelves and sent children scrambling under desks at schools.
It was felt as far south as San Francisco, some 270 miles (435 kilometers) away, where residents described a rolling motion for several seconds. It was followed by multiple smaller aftershocks. There were no immediate reports of major damage or injuries from the quake.
The tsunami warning issued shortly after the quake struck spanned from the edge of California’s Monterey Bay north into Oregon.
“It was a strong quake. Our building shook. We’re fine, but I have a mess to clean up right now,” said Julie Kreitzer, owner of Golden Gait Mercantile, a store packed with food, wares and souvenirs that is a main attraction in Ferndale.
“I have to go. I have to try and salvage something for the holidays because it’s going to be a tough year,” Kreitzer said before hanging up.
The region — known for its redwood forests, scenic mountains and the three-county Emerald Triangle’s legendary marijuana crop — was struck by a magnitude 6.4 quake in 2022 that left thousands of people without power and water. The northwest corner of California is the most seismically active part of the state because it’s where three tectonic plates meet, seismologist Lucy Jones said on the social media platform BlueSky.
Shortly after the quake, phones in Northern California buzzed with the tsunami warning from the National Weather Service that said: “A series of powerful waves and strong currents may impact coasts near you. You are in danger. Get away from coastal waters. Move to high ground or inland now. Keep away from the coast until local officials say it is safe to return.”
Numerous cities urged people to evacuate to higher ground as a precaution.
In Santa Cruz, authorities cleared the main beach, taping off entrances with police tape. Aerial footage showed cars bumper-to-bumper heading to higher ground on California highways 1 and 92 in the Half Moon Bay area south of San Francisco.
Cindy Vosburg, the executive director for the Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce, said she heard alarms sound just before shaking began, and the city’s cultural center downtown started to creak.
“Just as it would start to subside, the building would roll again,” Vosburg said.
White House spokesperson Jeremy Edwards said President Joe Biden was briefed on the earthquake and that FEMA officials are in touch with their state and local counterparts in California and Oregon.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed off on a state of emergency declaration to quickly move state resources to impacted areas along the coast. State officials were concerned about damage in the northern part of the state, Newsom said.
Crews in Eureka, the biggest city in the region, were assessing if there was any damage. Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel, who works at a middle school, said lights were swaying and everyone got under desks.
“The kids were so great and terrified. It seemed to go back and forth for quite a long time,” she said. Some children asked, “Can I call my mom?“
The students were later sent home.
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal said residents experienced cracks in their homes’ foundations, as well as broken glass and windows, but nothing severe.
Honsal said he was in his office in the 75-year-old courthouse in downtown Eureka when he felt the quake.
“We’re used to it. It is known as ‘earthquake country’ up here,” he said. “It wasn’t a sharp jolt. It was a slow roller, but significant.”
The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, known as BART, stopped traffic in all directions through the underwater tunnel between San Francisco and Oakland, and the San Francisco Zoo’s visitors were evacuated.
This quake was a strike-slip type of temblor that shifts more horizontally and is less prone to cause tsunamis, unlike the more vertical types, said National Weather Service tsunami program manager Corina Allen in Washington state.
___
Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Christopher Weber, Jaimie Ding and Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles; Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz, California; Sophie Austin and Tran Nguyen in Sacramento, California; and Seth Borenstein in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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