Next month’s Copa America soccer tournament will take place in Brazil, the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) said on Monday, as it thanked President Jair Bolsonaro for stepping in after original host Argentina pulled out after a surge of COVID-19 cases.
 
The surprise decision, which relocates the competition from one South American coronavirus hot spot to another, means the oldest international tournament in the world will kick off as planned on June 13, with the final on July 10.
 
“The Brazilian government has shown agility and decisive thinking at a crucial moment for South American football,” CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez said in a statement.
 
“Brazil is in a time of stability, it has proven infrastructure and recent experience in hosting a tournament of this magnitude.”
 
Brazil hosted the Copa America in 2019 and the World Cup in 2014.
 
The decision is a boost for Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who has railed against lockdowns and urged Brazilians to return to normal life.
 
In a separate tweet, CONMEBOL thanked Bolsonaro for “opening the country’s doors to what is now the safest sporting event in the world.”
 
The president’s office directed questions to the sport department at the Ministry of Citizenship, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
 460,000 Dead
 
More than 460,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Brazil, the second highest number in the world after the United States, and the vaccination roll-out has stuttered. But Argentina is struggling with a recent spike. According to a Reuters tally, Brazil has reported 204 infections per 100,000 people in the last seven days, compared to 484 per 100,000 in Argentina.
 
Large protests took place across Brazil on Saturday against Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.
 
Huge social demos also shook Brazil during the 2013 Confederations Cup but vice president Hamilton Mourao told reporters in Brasilia he did not expect more demonstrations during the Copa America and said he thought Brazil was a “less risky” choice than Argentina. With no fans expected to attend, the risk was diminished, he said.
 
But many others in Brazil, where soccer is a national obsession, were outraged by the decision.
 
“The authorities act as if Brazil had advanced vaccination as in the United States. It will be difficult to cheer for the national team,” prominent journalist Guga Chacra wrote in a tweet.
 
The CONMEBOL announcement comes less than 24 hours after Argentina said its outbreak meant it could no longer host.
 
This year’s Copa America was to be the first featuring joint hosts, but Colombia was removed as co-host on May 20 after a wave of protests demanding social and economic change spread across the country.
 
CONMEBOL hoped Argentina could then host all 28 games or share them with South American neighbors.
 
Organizers had been reluctant to cancel the lucrative tournament. The last Copa America, held in Brazil in 2019, brought in $118 million in revenue.
 
Although no decision has yet been made on venues, many of the stadiums Brazil built or reformed for the 2014 World Cup could be candidates to host matches, with the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro or the Mane Garrincha stadium in the capital Brasilia possible locations.
 
One source told Reuters that venues in Brasilia, Natal, Manaus and Cuiaba will be used. CONMEBOL said it would reveal the host cities “in the coming hours.”
 
The last-minute decision also throws up some complicated questions for the Brazilian national federation (CBF). The Brazilian league was not due to be halted for the Copa America and at least 70 league games are scheduled to be played during the month-long tournament.
 
News reports in Brazil said Flamengo will ask the CBF to suspend the league for the duration of the Copa.
 
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Severe acute childhood malnutrition is expected to more than double this year in Haiti as the country struggles with the coronavirus pandemic, a spike in violence and dwindling resources, a UNICEF report said Monday.
More than 86,000 children under age 5 could be affected, compared with 41,000 reported last year, said Jean Gough, UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
“I was saddened to see so many children suffering from malnutrition,” she said after a weeklong visit to Haiti. “Some will not recover unless they receive treatment on time.”
Severe acute malnutrition is considered a life-threatening condition.  
In a slightly less dangerous category, acute malnutrition in kids younger than 5 in Haiti has risen 61%, with some 217,000 children expected to suffer from it this year, compared with 134,000 last year.  
Overall, UNICEF said, about 4.4 million of Haiti’s more than 11 million inhabitants lack sufficient food, including 1.9 million children.
Gough told The Associated Press during a recent visit to a hospital in the southern city of Les Cayes that UNICEF has only a one-month supply left of a special food paste given to children in need and is seeking $3 million by the end of June.  
Officials said the pandemic also has disrupted health services, with childhood immunization rates dropping from 28% to 44%, depending on the vaccine. The decrease has led to a rise in diphtheria cases as health workers brace for an expected measles outbreak this year.
UNICEF noted that unvaccinated children also are more likely to die from malnutrition.
Lamir Samedi, a nurse who works at a community health center in the southern town of Saint-Jean-du-Sud, said the target was to vaccinate 80% of children in the area, but they had yet to reach 50%.
Among the children hospitalized is 11-month-old Denise Joseph, who lay quietly in a crib in Les Cayes after being diagnosed with tuberculosis two weeks ago.
 
“She never eats,” said her grandmother, Marie-Rose Emile, who is caring for the infant since her mother also is ill. Emile is struggling to provide for the baby, saying she has barely harvested any beans, corn or potatoes this year.
Gough, the UNICEF official, said she was discouraged by the dismal numbers of malnutrition and drop in childhood immunizations. She said more outreach services are needed because not enough people are visiting community health centers.
Among those visiting a health center for the first time was 27-year-old Franceline Mileon, who brought her young child after hearing a health official with a bullhorn in her neighborhood announcing that a vaccination program had begun. She sat on a bench, coddling her baby, as she waited for a nurse to weigh her.
Overall, UNICEF said it needs nearly $49 million this year to meet humanitarian needs in Haiti, adding that little of that amount has been pledged. The agency $5.2 million of that amount would go toward nutrition and $4.9 million for health, including childhood immunizations.
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Colombia’s government resumed negotiations with demonstrators to end more than a month of protests Sunday, as the UN called for an independent investigation after at least 13 people died in clashes in the city of Cali. President Ivan Duque’s team and some of the demonstration representatives resumed talks in Bogota after nearly a week’s pause.   But a resolution seemed far off, as the protesters denounced the Duque administration’s “complicit silence” in the face of “excessive” use of force by law enforcement.   The government responded that an agreement could be reached once the blockades choking up the country’s transport infrastructure are lifted.   In just over a month of unrest, 59 people have died across Colombia according to official data, with more than 2,300 civilians and uniformed personnel injured.    The NGO Human Rights Watch says it has “credible reports” of at least 63 deaths nationwide. The crackdown by the armed forces on the anti-government protests has drawn international condemnation, and on Sunday UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet voiced “deep concern” over the ongoing violence. Cali deathsClashes in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city and one of the major centers of the protests, pitted police against armed civilians late Friday, leaving 13 dead, according to officials. Calling for an investigation, Bachelet’s office said it had received reports that 14 people had been killed, and that 98 people were injured, 54 of them by firearms.   It added it had been told that armed individuals, including an off-duty judicial police officer, had opened fire on demonstrators, journalists covering the protests, and passers-by.A man (L) against the national strike faces a man who supports it, during a demonstration in opposition to road blockades and violence, after a month of national protests, in Bogota, on May 30, 2021.The policeman was subsequently beaten to death by a crowd, it said, and in parts of Cali civilians were seen firing shots at demonstrators as police looked on. A witness to the troubles in the neighborhood of Melendez on Friday told AFP a group was marking the one-month anniversary of the protests when “shots rang out.” “They started massacring people,” said the 22-year-old, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, and claimed the shots came from five people in civilian clothes “hiding behind the trees.”   “It is essential that all those who are reportedly involved in causing injury or death, including state officials, are subject to prompt, effective, independent, impartial and transparent investigations,” Bachelet said in a statement, calling for those responsible to be held accountable.  The police said in a statement it would investigate claims that its members were “permissive with the actions of armed civilians.” In Colombia, the police fall under the command of the military. Bachelet’s office also said it had received information of at least 30 people arrested in Cali since Friday, and highlighted concerns about the whereabouts of some of them. “The fair trial and due process rights of those detained need to be ensured,” the commissioner said. ‘Dousing fire with gasoline’ On Saturday, Duque was booed by a crowd as he appeared in public in Cali.  The president, who was there Friday to Sunday and chaired a security meeting, had ordered more than 1,100 soldiers to be deployed to the western city.  Some in Cali’s poorer neighborhoods told AFP the military deployment to their city made them more fearful, not less. “If something happens, we cannot call the police because they are the ones who are killing,” said Lina Gallegas, a 31-year-old community activist.    Luis Felipe Vega, a political scientist at Javeriana University, likened the deployment to “putting out a fire with gasoline.”   Cali security secretary Carlos Rojas described scenes in the south of the city as “almost an urban war.” In Cali, as across the country, poverty, joblessness, inequality and the fallout from the coronavirus epidemic have sparked widespread anger and resentment.   The protests, which began on April 28, were initially against a proposed tax increase Colombians said would leave them poorer even as they struggled with pandemic-related losses of income.   The proposal was quickly withdrawn, but the protests morphed into a wider denunciation of the government and the armed forces.   Blockades burning Barricades have been kept burning countrywide and blocked dozens of key roads, causing shortages of many products. According to authorities, some 87 blockades have been set up throughout the country, mainly in the vicinity of Cali.  Duque has deployed 7,000 troops across the country to help clear and patrol the blockaded roads.   Over the weekend white-clad demonstrators took to the streets of Bogota, Medellin and other cities to demand an end to the protests and blockades.   “Today we go out peacefully to demand an end to the strike… all the road closures and blockades are affecting the national economy and are generating more poverty,” Bernardo Henao, a 63-year-old lawyer and cattle rancher, told AFP at one of the gatherings.   Colombia is also struggling to contain the coronavirus situation in the country.   On Saturday it reported a record daily coronavirus death toll of 540. 
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Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday for a record-equaling fourth time, in front of the largest crowd to attend a sporting event in the United States since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.The 46-year-old Brazilian surged to the front with two laps to go and held off a challenge from hard-charging Spanish young gun Alex Palou to claim victory and join AJ Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser as the only four-time winners of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”It was the 21st Indy 500 start for Castroneves but his first with Meyer Shank Racing, his other wins in 2001, 2002 and 2009 all coming with Team Penske.With the race back in its traditional U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend slot, after last year’s event was moved to August and held at an empty track because of the pandemic, a sold-out crowd of 135,000 excited fans flocked to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.While the crowd was well shy of the nearly 400,000 that the speedway can accommodate, the roars returned to the Brickyard as fans partied in the sunshine.
 
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Tens of thousands of people in Brazil staged another day of protest against President Jair Bolsonaro, in particular for his chaotic handling of the pandemic, which has claimed more than 461,000 lives here.In downtown Rio de Janeiro, some 10,000 people wearing masks marched through the streets, with some chanting “Bolsonaro genocide” or “Go away, Bolsovirus.”Similar rallies were held in other major cities, the latest in a wave of anger against Bolsonaro that began months ago. After the United States, Brazil has the world’s second-highest coronavirus death toll.At the outset of the pandemic, the far right Bolsonaro dismissed COVID-19 as “a little flu” and as the death toll has risen steadily he has gone on to infuriate people in other ways, opposing stay-at-home measures and masks, touting ineffective medications, refusing offers of vaccines, and failing to anticipate oxygen shortages that left patients to suffocate.One of the themes of the rally Saturday was how many lives might have been saved if the Bolsonaro government had started Brazil’s vaccination drive earlier. The drive is going slowly and has sputtered frequently for lack of supplies.”We must stop this government. We must say ‘Enough is enough,'” businessman Omar Silveira told AFP at the Rio rally.Of Bolsonaro, he said: “He is a murderer, a psychopath. He has no feelings. He does not feel, as we do. He cannot perceive the disaster that he is causing.”Demonstrators also assailed Bolsonaro for allowing deforestation of the Amazon and land seizures from indigenous people, and said he encourages violence and racism.Rallies were held Saturday in other major cities such as the capital Brasilia, Salvador in the northeast and Belo Horizonte in the southeast.In the northeastern city of Recife, police firing tear gas and rubber bullets dispersed a street rally, said the news website G1.Brasilia saw its largest rally since the start of the pandemic as people marched on Congress, where a senate commission is investigating Bolsonaro’s handling of the health crisis.The past two weekends supporters of Bolsonaro held demonstrations in support of him — and at his request — as his approval rating plummeted to a record low of 24%, according to a poll by Datafolha.  Around 49% of those questioned favor Bolsonaro being removed from office while 46% are opposed, this pollster said.    
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United Nations human rights officials warn a new electoral law passed by Nicaragua’s National Assembly early this month undermines prospects that November’s presidential and parliamentary elections will be free and fair. The consequences of the new law have been immediate.  In recent weeks, Nicaraguan authorities have used the so-called reforms under the new law to dissolve two political parties. They also have initiated a criminal investigation of one of the country’s main presumptive presidential candidates, Cristiana Chamorro.Spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Marta Hurtado says the authorities are investigating Chamorro for alleged money laundering.”The investigation is based on the law against money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction adopted in July 2018,” Hurtado said. “This broadly worded law has raised general concerns that it may be used to silence dissent.  The allegations against Ms. Chamorro include the supposed misuse of funds received from international sources.”   President Daniel Ortega has been a major political force in the country since the Sandinista Party overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979.  He has maintained an iron grip on power since his last reelection as president in 2006.  His opponent in that race was then-President Violeta Chamorro, Cristiana Chamorro’s mother.Hurtado says the National Police also have intensified actions to restrict the movements of other opposition leaders.   “Under these circumstances, the dissolution of political parties and the initiation of criminal investigations that could lead to the disqualification of opposition candidates, without due process, not only undermine the right to stand for election by aspiring candidates, but also the right of voters to elect the candidates of their choice,” Hurtado said. “The new electoral law is the latest in a series of measures adopted by the National Assembly that disproportionately restrict the right to freedom of expression by human rights defenders, journalists, political and social leaders.The U.N. human rights office is calling on the Nicaraguan Government to stop harassing members of the opposition and journalists.  It also is urging the authorities to amend the electoral law, which it says impinges on human rights and threatens a democratic electoral process. 
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Colombian President Ivan Duque announced Friday he was deploying military troops to Cali, at the epicenter of bloody anti-government protests across the country that have left dozens dead over the past month.”Starting tonight, the maximum deployment of military assistance to the national police in the city of Cali begins,” Duque announced after chairing a security meeting in the city of 2.2 million people.Three people died Friday during the protests in Cali, authorities said, the latest fatalities in weeks of unrest.The new toll brings to 49 the deaths officially reported to date, two of them police officers. Human Rights Watch puts the tally at 63.The latest deaths occurred in clashes between “those blocking and those trying to get through” a barricade, Cali’s Mayor Jorge Ivan Ospina said in a video posted to social media.Video footage showed a man lying in a pool of blood and another nearby wielding a gun, who was then attacked by a group of people.Ospina regretted what he described as an “insane situation of death and pain.””We cannot allow these circumstances to keep happening in Cali,” he said. “We must not fall into the temptation of violence and death,” he added.Colombians first took to the streets on April 28 against a proposed tax increase many said would leave them poorer even as the coronavirus pandemic was erasing jobs and eating into savings.Though the reform was quickly withdrawn, it triggered a broad anti-government mobilization by people who felt they were left to fend for themselves in the health crisis, and angry over the heavy-handed response of the security forces.The police clampdown has provoked international condemnation.A family sits in their car at a roadblock set up by anti-government protesters in Madrid, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, May 28, 2021.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Colombia’s Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez in Washington on Friday.The U.S. diplomat “expressed his concern and condolences for the loss of life during recent protests in Colombia and reiterated the unquestionable right of citizens to protest peacefully,” according to spokesperson Ned Price.Blinken also “welcomed the national dialogue President (Ivan) Duque has convened as an opportunity for the Colombian people to work together to construct a peaceful, prosperous future.”Two weeks of negotiations to end the unrest have yet to bear fruit.In order to move forward, protest leaders insist the government must acknowledge abuses by the armed forces.But Bogota, while conceding individual bad apples, claims leftist guerrillas and dissident FARC fighters have infiltrated the demonstrations to foment violence and vandalism.On Monday, the White House had urged Colombia to find more than 100 people reported missing as a result of the unrest.Some 2,000 people have been reported injured.
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The remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children, a discovery Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Friday as heartbreaking. The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978, according to the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation, which said the remains were found with the help of a ground-penetrating radar specialist. “We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify,” Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir said in a statement. “At this time, we have more questions than answers.” FILE – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks in Ottawa, Nov. 20, 2020.Canada’s residential school system, which forcibly separated indigenous children from their families, constituted “cultural genocide,” a six-year investigation into the now-defunct system found in 2015. The report documented horrific physical abuse, rape, malnutrition and other atrocities suffered by many of the 150,000 children who attended the schools, typically run by Christian churches on behalf of Ottawa from the 1840s to the 1990s. It found more than 4,100 children died while attending residential school. The deaths of the 215 children buried in the grounds of what was once Canada’s largest residential school are believed to not have been included in that figure and appear to have been undocumented until the discovery. Trudeau wrote in a tweet that the news “breaks my heart — it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history.” In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologized for the system. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation said it was engaging with the coroner and reaching out to the home communities whose children attended the school. They expect to have preliminary findings by mid-June. In a statement, British Columbia Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee called finding such grave sites “urgent work” that “refreshes the grief and loss for all First Nations in British Columbia.”  
 
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On Wednesday, a group of US senators introduced legislation that would provide financial help to US government workers suffering from brain damage connected to the mysterious Havana Syndrome. Daria Dieguts reports on this mysterious affliction.
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On Wednesday, a group of US senators introduced legislation that would provide financial help to US government workers suffering from brain damage connected to the mysterious Havana Syndrome. Daria Dieguts reports on this mysterious affliction.
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Twelve companies and groups including Microsoft, Mastercard and Nestle’s Nespresso said Thursday that they would commit to making investments in Central America, a win for Vice President Kamala Harris as she aims to lower migration from the region into the United States. President Joe Biden has tasked Harris with leading U.S. efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Since then, Harris has taken a series of steps aimed at improving conditions and lowering migration from the region. Harris, who met with officials from these companies and groups Thursday, said economic opportunities in the region could be boosted via partnerships with the private sector. “In order for us as an administration, the United States government, to maximize the potential of our work, it has to be through collaboration, through public-private partnerships,” Harris told reporters at the start of the meeting. The meeting was attended by top executives from yogurt maker Chobani, food giant Nestle’s Nespresso unit, financial companies Bancolombia and Davivienda, as well as language-learning website Duolingo. Commitments by the companies include Microsoft’s agreeing to expand internet access to as many as 3 million people in the region by July 2022 and Nespresso’s plans to begin buying some of its coffee from El Salvador and Honduras with a minimum regional investment of $150 million by 2025, a White House official said. Chobani has agreed to bring its incubator program for local entrepreneurs to Guatemala, while Mastercard will aim to bring 5 million people in the region who currently lack banking services into the financial system and give 1 million micro and small businesses access to electronic banking, the official said. Areas of focusThe U.S. vice president’s push to spur regional economic growth will focus on six areas. These include expanding affordable internet access, combating food shortages by boosting farm productivity, and backing regional efforts to fight climate change and make a transition to clean energy. The plan will also aim to expand job training programs and improve public health access. In April, Harris unveiled an additional $310 million in U.S. aid to Central America. She is expected to visit Guatemala and Mexico on June 7-8, her first overseas trip as vice president. U.S. officials see corruption as a major contributor to a migrant exodus from the region, along with gang violence and natural disasters, issues that represent hurdles for companies investing in the region.Anti-corruption strategySome Central American leaders recently pushed back on the Biden administration’s anti-corruption strategy, which included releasing a list labeling 17 regional politicians as corrupt. On his trip next week to Costa Rica, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to use meetings with his Central American and Mexican counterparts gathered there to address corruption, governance and rule-of-law issues, said Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. “These are some of the issues that are the drivers of why people leave their homes in the first place,” Chung told reporters in a briefing ahead of Blinken’s June 1-2 trip. “They don’t have confidence in their governments.”  
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Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday will announce commitments from a dozen companies and organizations to invest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to address the root causes of migration from the region.
Participants include corporate giants such as Mastercard and Microsoft as well as Pro Mujer, a nonprofit that focuses on providing aid to low-income women in Latin America, along with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the World Economic Forum.
Leaders in the effort planned to join Harris virtually and in person at an event later Thursday at her ceremonial office. The vice president was expected to issue a “call to action” for businesses and nonprofits to make new commitments to promote economic opportunity in Central America.
The aim is to focus aid on supporting vulnerable populations such as women and young people, and to invest in internet access, job-training programs and efforts to combat food shortages.
It’s part of Harris’ role in dealing with the root causes of migration to the United States, a task she was given by President Joe Biden in March. Harris has had multiple calls with the presidents of Guatemala and Mexico, and held meetings with interest groups, policy experts and companies from the region.
She plans to visits Guatemala and Mexico in early June for her first trip abroad as vice president.
Harris has emphasized the need for economic development in the region and for public-private partnerships to address the challenges there. The administration is backing a proposal to provide $7 billion in assistance to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in hopes that the support can address the poverty and violence that leads people to flee to the U.S.
But the increase in migration at the border has become a significant political headache for Harris and Biden. Republicans accuse them of inaction on what they say is a crisis created in part by the president’s decision to halt construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and end some restrictions on asylum-seekers.
April was the second-busiest month on record for unaccompanied children encountered at the border, following March’s all-time high, and the Border Patrol’s total encounters in April were up 3% from March, marking the highest level since April 2000. The April encounters are not directly comparable because most of those stopped were quickly expelled from the United States under federal pandemic-related powers that deny rights to seek asylum, and because being expelled carries no legal penalty, many try to cross multiple times.
The increase has strained the capacity of the Border Patrol and the Department of Health and Human Services, which holds the minors in shelters until they can be placed with relatives or sponsors in the U.S. while authorities determine whether they have a legal right to remain in the country, either through asylum or for some other reason. It also has led to criticism from Republicans, who point to Harris and Biden’s decision not to visit the border to survey the situation as evidence of their negligence.
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Brazil, like many countries across the world, has suffered economic devastation during the pandemic with skyrocketing unemployment and poverty.  But an unexpected trend has emerged with analysts at the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange reporting a huge jump in investment by small investors —a phenomenon driven largely by influencers.  For VOA, Edgar Maciel reports from Sao Paulo.Camera: Edgar Maciel 
Producer: Marcus Harton  
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The United States will expand Haitian eligibility for a humanitarian program that grants deportation relief and work permits to immigrants who cannot safely return to their home countries, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told lawmakers in an email Saturday.A new designation of so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will cover an estimated 150,000 Haitians living in the United States, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez said in a written statement.Democratic lawmakers and pro-immigrant advocates had pressed the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to expand deportation relief for Haitians. Former President Donald Trump, a Republican, sought to end most TPS enrollment, including that of Haitians, but was stymied by federal courts.The TPS program grants deportation relief and work permits to immigrants whose home countries experience a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary event.Haitians were granted TPS in 2010 following a devastating earthquake in the Caribbean nation, but the latest move would expand the program to Haitians in the United States as of May 21.”Haiti is currently experiencing serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources, which are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an email to lawmakers obtained by Reuters.“After careful consideration, we determined that we must do what we can to support Haitian nationals in the United States until conditions in Haiti improve so they may safely return home.”
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Amnesty International named one of Cuba’s leading dissidents a “prisoner of conscience” on Friday, saying state security appeared to have him under supervision and incommunicado at the hospital where authorities admitted him nearly three weeks ago.Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, 33, had been staging a hunger and thirst strike for seven days at his home in Old Havana to protest what he called state harassment when health officials transferred him to hospital on May 2.The Cuban health department said at the time that doctors found no sign of malnutrition and that Otero Alcantara was in stable condition.Supporters question why he remains in hospital and incommunicado, adding that police have blocked them from visiting him. Otero Alcantara did not reply to attempts by Reuters to contact him by phone and social media.Videos of him in hospital posted online by pro-government accounts, including one on Thursday in which he appeared thinner and hunched over, have further fueled supporters’ fears.Hospitals in Cuba are state-run and the International Press Center, which fields all requests from foreign journalists for comment from state entities, did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Otero Alcantara’s status.“Luis Manuel must not spend one more day under state custody,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International. “It is time for the Cuban authorities to recognize that they cannot silence all the independent voices in the country.”Otero Alcantara is the head of the San Isidro Movement, a group of a few dozen artists, writers and activists that has protested restrictions in Cuba on civil liberties for the last few years, often through provocative performances.Since it sparked a rare protest in front of the culture ministry in November, authorities have taken to state-run media to denounce its members and allies as agitators working with the United States to destabilize the government as Cuba’s economy goes through its worst crisis in decades.The movement denies the charges. Meanwhile the U.S. State Department declined last month to directly address a Reuters’ question about financing Cuban dissidents but said it supported those in civil society worldwide defending their rights.Exiled rights group Cubalex said five Cubans who were arrested in Old Havana on April 30 for protesting in support of Otero Alcantara remained in custody on Friday on charges of resisting authority and public disorder.
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The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is pulling aid from El Salvador’s national police and a public information institute and will instead redirect the funding to civil society groups, the agency’s head said in a statement Friday.The statement cited concerns over votes earlier this month by legislative allies of President Nayib Bukele to oust the attorney general and top judges.USAID Administrator Samantha Power expressed “deep concerns” with the dismissals as well as “larger concerns about transparency and accountability” in the Central American country.The earmarked funds will now go to “promoting transparency, combating corruption and monitoring human rights” in concert with local civil society groups, the statement said, without specifying the amount of money in question.In an apparent response to Power, Bukele heaped scorn on the civil society groups that were poised to benefit from the shift in U.S. funding in a post on Twitter minutes after the announcement.”It’s good they receive foreign financing, because they will not receive a cent from the Salvadoran people,” Bukele wrote.USAID, the international development arm of the U.S. government, provides funding to a wide variety of programs in mostly poor countries across the globe.”Respect for an independent judiciary, a commitment to the separation of powers and a strong civil society are essential components of any democracy,” it said in its statement.Growing disputeIt is the latest salvo in an intensifying spat between the two countries. On Tuesday, the U.S. government released a list of allegedly corrupt Central American politicians, including a couple with close ties to Bukele. That prompted the Salvadoran leader to praise China, in an apparent swipe at Washington.Bukele, 39, who is popular at home, has argued that the high-profile dismissals were justified and legal.Bukele’s party accused the five ousted judges of impeding the government’s health strategy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the attorney general of lacking independence.The abrupt votes to remove them were criticized as a dangerous power grab by the tiny opposition to Bukele in El Salvador, as well as the U.S. government and international rights groups like Amnesty International.Bukele’s critics also accuse him of misusing the national police and the public information institute for political ends.El Salvador, which has an economy closely tied to the United States by trade and a large migrant population, is negotiating a more than $1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where Washington wields significant influence.The IMF earlier this week cited progress in the ongoing talks.
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Officials in Guatemala said Thursday that at least seven people were dead after clashes involving rival gangs escalated into a riot in a western Quetzaltenango state prison.Guatemalan Penitentiary System Director Luis Rodolfo Escobar told reporters the clashes began Wednesday at the prison, in Cantel, about 205 kilometers west of Guatemala City, when one gang learned of the death of the wife of one of its members.Escober said Thursday that security teams had taken control of the prison and were doing a head count to make sure no one had escaped.Police said at least six of the victims from the riot were found beheaded on a patio in the prison. The officials said the prison was built to house 500 prisoners, but The Associated Press reported it currently holds more than 2,000 inmates.Violence in Guatemala prisons is not uncommon as the facilities are notoriously overcrowded and out of date. Meanwhile, gang violence in Guatemala is among the worst in the world. The U.S. State Department recommends that citizens not travel to the country because gang violence and crime are common.Last month, the State Department imposed sanctions on a current member of Guatemala’s congress and a former presidential aide, for corruption.
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The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center reports the number of people displaced inside their own countries because of conflict, violence and weather-related disasters reached an all-time high of 55 million by the end of 2020.Experts tracking these events thought sanity would prevail during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in fewer conflicts and triggering fewer forced displacements.  They also hoped global efforts against climate change to prevent disasters would protect more people.However, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, says the verdict is in and it is not good. He says last year, conflict and disasters caused more than 40 million new displacements, with some people being forced to move many times out of their homes.”Forty million times a child, a woman, or a man was displaced in 2020,” said Egeland. “That is more than one person per second, and it is continuing, so…a lot of people have been displaced also in 2021 while we speak.”The report says Syria has the highest number of internally displaced people, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia. It says sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa generated 90 percent of all new conflict-related displacements.Children displaced by the conflict play on metal railings at the elementary school where they now live with their families in the town of Abi Adi, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia Tuesday, May 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)The director of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, Alexandra Bilak, says escalating violence in Ethiopia and strengthening of extremist groups in Mozambique and Burkina Faso fueled some of the world’s fastest growing displacement crises.”In Ethiopia, we are looking at over half a million new displacements that were triggered by violence in the Tigray region alongside, as you know, reports of human rights violations and abuses,” said Bilak. “But across the rest of the continent, we saw how armed groups exploited simmering disputes and expanded their influence across the Sahel, as well as in Nigeria, Somalia and Mozambique.”Weather-related events, primarily storms and floods, were responsible for 98 percent of all new disaster displacements recorded last year. The report says nearly 70 percent took place in South Asia and East Asia, and the Pacific.Elsewhere, it says the Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record, with 30 main storms. It notes hurricanes Laura, Eta and Iota alone triggered 2.7 million new displacements across 14 Central American and Caribbean countries.It adds 1.7 million displacements were recorded in the United States from devastating wildfires and hurricanes. Authors of the report cite this as an important reminder that high-income countries are just as exposed to disasters as low-and-middle-income countries.
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American lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation providing aid to diplomats who suffered a mysterious illness known as the Havana Syndrome while posted in Cuba. The so-called Havana Act would authorize the government to provide injured employees with additional financial support for brain injuries resulting from what the Trump administration termed a “sonic attack.” Over 40 American diplomats serving in Cuba in 2016 said they suffered persistent ear pain, headaches, and problems with memory, concentration, balance, sleeping and more. Employees at the time reported hearing loud buzzing, “piercing squeals” and “mechanical-sounding” noises. “As we work to identify the adversary responsible, we must support the victims,” Senator Susan Collins, a co-sponsor of the bill, said Wednesday. As we work to identify the adversary responsible, we must support the victims. A bill I introduced would provide them with additional financial support.https://t.co/HlF5xAnhNq— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) May 19, 2021Scientists studying the attacks theorized that weapons emitting damaging sound or microwaves caused the symptoms, though some later argued the strange sounds came from a loud species of cricket found in Cuba. Another group of researchers found the sounds could be caused by ultrasound signals from everyday devices crossed with signals from a surveillance system.’Havana Syndrome:’ Scans Show Differences in Affected Diplomat’s BrainsNearly three years after diplomats connected debilitating symptoms with strange noises, a new study looks at diplomats’ brains for answers During the uproar, the State Department cut staff at the embassy by more than half. VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday authorized an investigation into Environmental Minister Ricardo Salles and members of his agency on suspicion of running a timber trafficking ring that sent illegal exports to the United States and Europe.In a statement, the Federal Police said the court issued 35 search-and-seizure warrants carried out by 160 federal officers in the country’s Federal District and in São Paulo and Pará states.The police statement says the court also ordered several officials suspended from their duties at Brazil’s Environment Ministry and its administrative arm, the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, known as IBAMA. IBAMA chief Eduardo Bim was among the officials suspended. The environmental minister was not.Media reports say investigations began in January, based on information obtained from foreign authorities reporting possible misconduct by Brazilian public servants in timber exporting.Salles has been one of the most controversial figures in far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s government. The environmental minister has overseen a surge of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest since taking the post in 2019, and activists accuse him of dismantling Brazil’s environmental protection programs.When confronted by reporters about the raids earlier in the day, Salles denied any wrongdoing. He said that there was no substance to the accusations and that the investigation would demonstrate the environment ministry and IBAMA “have always sought to act according to the rules.”Salles has been in negotiations with the Biden administration in the U.S., seeking international funding for efforts to protect Brazil’s Amazon rainforests. President Joe Biden directly called on Brazil to take more action. 
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The U.S.-Canada border will remain closed to nonessential travel until at least June 21, according to news reports. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday a decision to reopen the nearly 9,000-kilometer-long border would depend on vaccination rates. “We’re all eager to get back to normal. But we know that before we get back to normal, cases need to be under control, and over 75% of people need to be vaccinated for us to start loosening things in Canada,” he said, according to CTV Television Network. CTV reports that just over 46% of Canadians have received a first vaccine dose. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday that 60% of Americans had received at least one dose of a vaccine. The border has been closed since March 21, 2020. Further details regarding reopening the border are being discussed, according to James Cudmore, director of communications for the minister of public safety, CTV reported. He said the two sides are in “regular contact.” “Until the conditions on both sides of the border change very substantively, the measures at our borders will remain intact,” he said in an email to CTV. 
 
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One of Venezuela’s oldest newspapers was evicted from its own building Friday, after members of the National Guard, accompanied by a judge, executed a court order.
 
The Caracas offices of El Nacional were seized as part of a civil defamation case in which a court ordered the media outlet to pay more than US $13 million to Diosdado Cabello, a high-ranking official in Venezuela’s ruling Socialist Party and former president of the National Assembly.   
 
Miguel Henrique Otero, the paper’s editor-in-chief who lives in exile in Madrid, Spain, compared the court order to “a robbery” and said it was proof that freedom of the press no longer exists in Venezuela.  
 
In April, Venezuela’s Civil Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered El Nacional to pay damages to Cabello as part of a civil defamation complaint filed after the outlet republished an article by Spanish news outlet ABC.
 
Cabello has denied any links to drug trafficking.  
 
Otero said the seizure was “worse than expropriation” — where a government takes ownership of a property for public benefit — because it did not involve any legal procedure.
 
Lawyers for El Nacional plan to appeal. Because the media group publishes only online, it is still able to produce news content.
 
“The value of the building has nothing to do with the compensation,” Otero said, adding that he believes the damages are “an arbitrary figure” that is unjustified.  
 
The journalist compared the case to when Venezuela expropriated the studios of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) in 2007. The then government of Hugo Chavez refused to renew the broadcaster’s license and a court ordered the military to seize control of RCTV’s equipment and installations, Reuters reported at the time.FILE – The last print edition of El Nacional, one of Venezuela’s oldest newspapers, is seen in a December 2018 photo. (VOA/Adriana Nuñez Rabascall and Alvaro Algarra)RCTV was replaced by the state-run TVES television channel, but in El Nacional’s case, Otero said, his building was turned over to Cabello. “They make him a millionaire,” he said.  
 
Cabello was cited on May 12 as saying on Twitter that the El Nacional building is not for the Venezuela government, and demanded that Otero pay the damages ordered by the court. “You can pay me in cash, or by check (with verified funds) I’ll use the money to buy vaccines. If not, I will have to seize your properties,” Cabello was cited as saying. 
 
The lawmaker said that he intends to use the building for a university of communications.
 
“The U.S. and media rights groups have condemned the actions against El Nacional.
 
Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department’s bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on Twitter, “The raid on [El Nacional] is not against a building or property, but against freedom of the press. This responsibility for this violation falls directly on the regime.”
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) described the court order as “the latest step in a long and arbitrary process of judicial harassment and abuses” against El Nacional for its reporting on corruption.   
 
“By taking control of the headquarters of one of the most influential outlets in the country, Venezuelan authorities have shown they will go to extraordinary lengths to suppress independent news,” Natalie Southwick, who heads CPJ’s South and Central America program said in a statement.
 
Venezuela has a poor press freedom record, scoring 148 out of 180 counties, where 1 is the most free, according to an annual index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The media watchdog cites harassment of independent media, arbitrary arrests and a “tense climate” that has led many journalists to flee.
 
Founded in 1943, El Nacional is one of Venezuela’s oldest newspapers. Under Nicolás Maduro’s government, it has faced obstacles to its reporting, including administration officials who refuse to speak to its staff, government advertising being pulled, and a shortage of paper forcing the daily to eventually move online.  
 
As part of the Cabello lawsuit, a court in 2015 imposed a travel ban on Otero and around 20 other journalists, staff and shareholders at the paper, according to the CPJ.
 
Otero told VOA that the newspaper’s archives “are outside” of the building. Venezuelan analysts, intellectuals and journalists say that with nearly 80 years’ history, El Nacional has one of the largest and more complete archives in the country.
 This article originated in VOA’s Spanish-language division. 
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The United States announced this week that it will share an additional 20 million coronavirus vaccine doses with other countries, in addition to the 60 million it has already committed. The unanswered question: where will the vaccines go?U.S. State Department Coordinator for Global COVID Response Gayle Smith sidestepped that issue Wednesday during a rapid-fire teleconference, despite repeated, urgent inquires from journalists in the Caribbean, India, Brazil, Africa, East Asia, and the European Union. However, Smith emphasized the U.S. is working closely with the global COVAX facility to determine where the vaccines are needed most, and how they can be most equitably distributed.    FILE – Gayle Smith, State Department Coordinator for Global COVID-19 Response and Health Security, speaks about U.S. leadership in fighting the coronavirus pandemic at the State Department in Washington, April 5, 2021.“We have not made the decisions on allocations yet,” she said, repeatedly. “We’ll have that information for you sometime in the near term. What we are doing is looking at every region in the world and we are well aware of the extremely low vaccine coverage on the African continent.”  Health experts at the United Nations estimate that of the 1.4 billion doses administered worldwide, only 24 million have reached Africa — less than 2%. The other point Smith emphasized: Despite the fact that the U.S.’s top adversaries, China and Russia, are ramping up their own vaccine donations around the world, this move by the U.S. is not a case of “vaccine diplomacy.” Smith stressed repeatedly that the U.S. will distribute according to need, and not to curry favor.      “Our view, with respect to vaccine diplomacy — and I think a really important point here — is that vaccines are tools for public health,” she said. “They are the means for bringing this pandemic to an end. We do not see them, do not intend to use them as a means for influence or pressure. And our decisions will be made on the basis of need, public health data and again, collaboration with key partners, absolutely including COVAX.”   However, Smith did note that the U.S. is the biggest donor of vaccines to the COVAX facility, and urged other wealthy nations to step up. She also noted that this vaccine donation will be accompanied by investments in vaccine manufacturing sites around the world, and U.S. assistance to improve other countries’ access to therapeutics and testing.     In making the donation announcement earlier this week, President Joe Biden explained his rationale for sending these vaccines, which were funded in large part by U.S. taxpayers, across the planet. “There’s a lot of talk about Russia and China influencing the world with vaccines,” he said. “We want to lead the world with our values, with this illustration of our innovation and ingenuity, and the fundamental decency of American people. Just as in World War II, America was the arsenal of democracy, in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic our nation is going to be the arsenal of vaccines for the rest of the world.” 
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Members of Colombia’s national police force who are responsible for abuses or acts of violence amid ongoing protests will be punished to the full extent of the law, the head of the force said.Demonstrators and human rights groups have repeatedly accused police officers of killing civilians, excessive use of force, sexual abuse and the use of firearms, both during current protests and previous ones.Accusations of possible abuse of a minor in the city of Popayan have sparked violent protests there this week.”They must respond before the authorities and whoever has knowingly committed a crime; the response will have the full weight of the law,” national police director General Jorge Luis Vargas told Reuters in an interview.”We are the first to reject illegal behavior by an officer and we will ask for forgiveness when there’s a judicial decision,” said Vargas.  Vargas said 122 disciplinary proceedings have been opened against police since protests began last month, while three have been arrested on murder charges tied to civilian deaths.”There cannot be, there must not be and there will not be impunity,” said the 30-year police veteran.Accused officers will have due process, he said, adding cops have also been the victims of physical aggression, firearm attacks and one incident where a mob set fire to a station.One police officer has died and nearly 900 have been injured.Police who have intervened to control looting and vandalism during protests have not used firearms, Vargas said. Instead non-lethal weapons are employed according to national and international rules.Groups like Human Rights Watch say misuse of non-lethal weapons can lead to deaths.Protesters, who originally called marches against a now-canceled tax plan, have expanded demands to include a basic income, an end to police violence and opportunities for young people, among other things.The protests’ death toll is disputed. The human rights ombudsman is investigating 41 civilian deaths, while the attorney general’s office has confirmed 14.Road blockades causing shortages will be broken up by the police whenever the government orders, Vargas said, repeating accusations that criminal groups and guerrillas have infiltrated protests to stoke violence.Leftist politicians and student groups have long demanded the police be transferred out of defense ministry control, use of lethal weapons during protests be banned, the riot police disbanded and officers implicated in abuse be tried in civilian and not military courts.Vargas ruled out the dissolution of the riot squad but said he supports more options for punishing police abuse.  
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