U.S. weather forecasters said early Saturday that Eta, now a tropical depression, will “gradually strengthen” as it moves toward the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Florida.The National Hurricane Center said tropical storm warnings are in effect for the Cayman Islands, Northwestern Bahamas and the Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, and Matanzas.Tropical storm watches have been issued for the east coast of Florida to the Sebastian Inlet, the Florida Keys and the Cuban provinces of La Habana, Artemisa y Mayabeque, Pinar delRio, and the Isle of Youth.A tropical storm warning means storm conditions are expected within 36 hours, while a tropical storm watch means the storm conditions could appear within 48 hours.Eta has ravaged Central America over the past few days with heavy rains that caused flooding and landslides that killed at least 100 people.In its latest report, the NHC said Eta was about 405 kilometers west-southwest of Grand Cayman and is moving with maximum sustained winds of 55 kph.Eta came ashore Tuesday in Nicaragua as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, bringing high winds, heavy rain, flooding and landslides in higher elevations.The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Friday that Eta has forced thousands of people to leave their homes and has caused “significant damage” to buildings and homes in Central America, including in Honduras, Guatemala and Panama.Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying a record for the busiest storm season.
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U.S. weather forecasters said early Saturday that Eta, now a tropical depression, will “gradually strengthen” as it moves toward the Cayman Islands.A tropical storm warning is in effect, the National Hurricane Center said, for the Caymans and the Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, and Matanzas.Eta has ravaged Central America over the past few days with heavy rains that caused flooding and landslides that killed at least 57 people.In its latest report, the NHC said Eta was about 500 kilometers west-southwest of Grand Cayman and is moving with maximum sustained winds of 55 kph.Eta came ashore Tuesday in Nicaragua as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, bringing high winds, heavy rain, flooding and landslides in higher elevations.The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Friday that Eta has forced thousands of people to leave their homes and has caused “significant damage” to buildings and homes in Central America, including in Honduras, Guatemala and Panama.Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying a record for the busiest storm season.
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Thousands of Haitian students filled the streets of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on Thursday to demand justice for Evelyne Sincere, a 22-year-old high school senior who was kidnapped and killed.Justice of the Peace Jean Flaury Raymond, who investigated the crime scene, told Le Nouvelliste newspaper that he saw evidence that the victim had been tortured. He said there were multiple bruises on her body. He also found evidence that she was sexually assaulted. He said the student’s half-naked body was dumped by her kidnappers and dropped off at a garbage dump in the Delmas 24 neighborhood Nov. 1.“Why is it always the poor who are targeted by these criminals?” a protester asked, after stopping to talk to VOA during the protest. “This is too much; we can’t stand it anymore. We are calling for justice!”The protester complained that a big problem is that youth have no support from the government. “That’s why we are targeted by these criminals – and the government and police do nothing,” he said.The young woman’s killing has roiled Haiti and the Haitian diaspora worldwide. Haitian soccer star Duckens Nazon, who plays for the national team, and world-renowned DJ Michael Brun were among those who posted photos of Sincere on their Instagram accounts expressing dismay.Rapper Bricks from the popular group Barikad Crew joined protesters in Port-au-Prince.”We’re out here in a show of solidarity for the protesters. If I didn’t feel threatened (by this violence), I wouldn’t be out here,” he told VOA. “The poor people are suffering, and so we need to be in the street to stop them from picking us off one by one.”Protesters ended their march in front of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security to demand Sincere’s killer be brought to justice swiftly.Suspect in custodyNational Police Commissioner Michel-Ange Louis Jeune issued a warrant for the arrest of a young man named Joseph “Kiki” Obed in connection with the kidnapping and killing of the student earlier this week. Friends said Obed was Sincere’s boyfriend.In a surprise development late Wednesday night, notorious gang leader Jimmy Cherisier – alias Barbecue – announced during a live broadcast on his Facebook page that he had apprehended Obed and turned him in to the chief of police. Obed was seen sitting next to the gang leader during the livestream.VOA Creole spoke to the chief, who confirmed that Obed was in police custody, but he declined to make a statement on camera. The irony is that Barbecue has multiple warrants out for his own arrest. He is accused of terrorizing the residents of several slums and orchestrating mass killings in those neighborhoods. It is unclear why he was not apprehended by police when he made the drop.Obed denies being involved in the crime.Sincere’s schoolmate and close friend told VOA Creole that Sincere often spoke about meeting up with her boyfriend Obed in the Delmas neighborhood where he lived.“Evelyne came by my house on Wednesday morning (Oct. 28) – the day she was kidnapped – and told me she was heading to her sister’s house and then she was going to see Obed at his house.”The friend said she received a phone call at 6 p.m. asking for a $6,000 ransom. She said she told the kidnapper she could not afford to pay that amount, and he responded that if she didn’t, he would kill her friend and dump her on a pile of trash.She said she tried to find enough money to pay the ransom but later realized she had been duped because while she was talking with him, the victim’s sister was at the morgue identifying Sincere’s body.Fellow students honor SincereAmong the Jacques Roumain high school students who participated in the protest were some of Sincere’s schoolmates who spoke of her dynamic personality.”Evelyne was more than a family member, more than a mother, a sister, and they took her away from us – our hopes have been dashed,” a male schoolmate who declined to give his name told VOA Creole.One of Sincere’s teachers spoke of the profound sadness they are left with.”We are crying. She was a leader. I spent four years teaching Evelyne. She was a happy soul. She was engaged in the community. We have a right to live. It is our fundamental right,” he said.Rash of kidnappingsKidnappings have terrorized Haiti for many years, targeting the wealthy and demanding ransoms of up to $100,000. What has unsettled Haitians this year is that the kidnappings now target residents of the poorest neighborhoods.”The objective is to ask for a ransom, but they are targeting a specific category of people to make money. And that category is the lowest class,” a protester told VOA. “I blame the government – they are using this scare tactic to prevent people from protesting.”The allegation that the government is linked to kidnappings is unsubstantiated.President Jovenel Moise quickly condemned the killing of Sincere on his official Twitter account the day her body was discovered.En tant que père de famille, je suis profondément choqué par l’enlèvement suivi de l’assassinat de la jeune écolière Evelyne Sincère. De telles atrocités sont inacceptables. Les autorités policières et judiciaires n’ont qu’un seul choix: mettre les bandits hors d’état de nuire.— Président Jovenel Moïse (@moisejovenel) November 2, 2020″As a father, I am profoundly shocked by the kidnapping and murder of the young student Evelyne Sincere. These types of atrocities are unacceptable. The police and law enforcement officials have no choice but to put the criminals responsible for this act in a place where they can no longer do harm,” Moise tweeted.US lawmaker sounds alarmThe Caribbean nation’s surge in violent crime has drawn attention from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, who urged U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison to be vigilant in the face of what may be a rash of politically motivated killings.”Use your considerable knowledge and experience in Haiti to prevent the country from descending into a downward spiral of chaos and violence,” Waters wrote in May.
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Communist-run Cuba will allow farmers, private traders and food processors to engage in direct wholesale and retail trade, as long as farmers meet government contracts, state media reported Friday.
 
The government will also loosen some price controls and delegate others to local officials’ discretion.
 
The measures do away with the state’s monopoly on produce distribution and sales and are part of a series of policy changes in the sector approved by the Council of Ministers amidst a growing food crisis.
 
Similar market-oriented reforms were adopted by the Communist Party a decade ago after a lengthy popular discussion, then reversed in 2016 with little explanation.
 
Fierce U.S. sanctions led to a dramatic drop in imports of fuel, fertilizer and other agricultural inputs in 2019 and the coronavirus pandemic has further cut into foreign exchange earnings needed to import food and production inputs.
 
Foreign and local experts expect economic growth to decline about 8% this year and trade by 30%.
 
The country imports more than 60% of the food it consumes and a large percentage of agricultural inputs such as fuel, machinery, fertilizer, pesticides and animal feed.
 
Production has stagnated in recent years and it declined dramatically in 2020, though the government has yet to publish any data this year.
 
“In order to guarantee the 30 pounds per capita per month of produce, the country needs some 154,000 tons of agricultural products, be they roots, vegetables or fruits,” Agriculture Minister Rodriguez Rollero said Thursday night on state television upon announcing the measures.
 
“This month we have 100,000 tons,” he said.
 
Produce markets are often poorly stocked and have long lines, as do supermarkets and other food outlets.
 
Viandas, types of starchy vegetables, reached a ceiling of 2.8 million tons in 2016 and 2017, mainly on account of bananas, and then they began to decrease through last year, state media commentator Ariel Terrero recently said during one of his weekly television programs.
 
“And vegetables stagnated at a peak of 2.5 million tons harvested six years ago,” he said. 
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Tensions appear to be running high as Bolivia’s president-elect Luis Arce prepares for his inauguration on Sunday.
 
AFP, the French news agency, reports conservative opponents of Arce launched a two-day strike in Bolivia’s largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Thursday, protesting alleged electoral fraud.
 
The apparent attempt to create discord is shared by the outgoing administration, which challenged Arce’s guest list for the inauguration.
 
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is expected to attend, although outgoing President Jeanine Anez initially said Maduro would not be invited, but an invitation was reportedly extended to opposition leader Juan Guaido because he is recognized as Venezuela’s leader.
 
It’s unclear if Guaido will attend the ceremony, but former President Evo Morales is expected to return to Boliva a day after the inauguration after a judge revoked an arrest warrant issued last year for him on accusations of sedition and terrorism.
 
Morales was accused of fueling unrest following the coup which led to his resignation last November.
 
Arce is Morales’ former economic minister, whose background could prove to be critical as Bolivia tries to reboot its economy slowed by the coronavirus pandemic.
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 At least 57 people have died from persistent heavy rains causing flooding and landslides across Central America, including Honduras, since Hurricane Eta came ashore in Nicaragua Tuesday,  Eta has been downgraded to a tropical depression, but lingering rains created more flooding from Panama to Guatemala.   President Alejandro Giammattei said nearly 300 Guatemalan homes have been affected and that the rain is expected to continue for two days.  A U.S. Black Hawk medical evacuation helicopter assigned to Joint Task Force-Bravo in Honduras rescued several people stranded in floodwaters Thursday.    The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Eta is forecast to regain tropical storm strength as it moves into the Caribbean Sea on a northerly path toward Cuba and southern Florida.  The center posted an advisory that Belize and western Cuba should be monitoring the storm’s movement.   A tropical storm watch is in effect for the Cayman Islands.    
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The rain-heavy remnants of Hurricane Eta flooded homes from Panama to Guatemala Thursday as the death toll across Central America rose to 57, and aid organizations warned the flooding and mudslides were creating a slow-moving humanitarian disaster across the region.The storm that hit Nicaragua as a mighty Category 4 hurricane on Tuesday had become more of a vast tropical rainstorm, but it was advancing so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America remained on high alert. Forecasters said the now-tropical depression was expected to regather and head toward Cuba and possibly the Gulf of Mexico by early next week.On Thursday afternoon, Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei said a water-soaked mountainside in the central part of the country had slid down onto the town of San Cristobal Verapaz, burying homes and leaving at least 25 dead.Two other slides in Huehuetenango had killed at least 12 more, he said. Earlier Thursday, five others had been killed in smaller slides in Guatemala.Giammattei said on that 60% of the eastern city of Puerto Barrios was flooded and 48 more hours of rain was expected.Guatemala’s toll was on top of 13 victims in Honduras and two in Nicaragua. Panamanian authorities reported eight missing.Residents paddle a boat through a flooded street in the aftermath of Hurricane Eta in Planeta, Honduras, Nov. 5, 2020.Eta had sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph) Thursday. It was centered 65 miles (100 kilometers) west-northwest of La Ceiba, Honduras.In Honduras, National Police said Thursday that six more bodies had been found, bringing that country’s toll to 13. The bodies of two adults and two children were found after excavations in a mudslide that occurred Wednesday in the township of Gualala, and two boys aged 8 and 11 died in another mudslide in El Níspero.Earlier, residents found the body of a girl buried in a landslide Wednesday in mountains outside the north coast city of Tela. In the same area, a landslide buried a home with a mother and two children inside it, according to Honduras Fire Department spokesman Óscar Triminio. He said there was also a 2-year-old girl killed in Santa Barbara department when she was swept away by floodwaters.Hundreds of residents of San Pedro Sula neighborhoods had to abandon their homes before dawn Thursday when water from the Chamelecon river arrived at their doorsteps.Miguel Angel Beltran, a security guard from the city’s Planeta neighborhood, said his district was lost and many people were missing or drowned.”We rescued my brothers, all the family from a balcony, a three-story building,” he said. “How is it possible that a government has done nothing to warn people.”His family lost everything and had nowhere to go, he said. The few boats rescuing people had no motors and struggled against the current, he said.Marvin Aparicio of Honduras’ emergency management agency said 41 communities have been cut off by washed out roads.Luis Alonso Salas, a 45-year-old construction worker, stood on high ground at a gas station where people who fled their homes picked over a pile of donated clothing.”It was terrible, I lost my whole house, I couldn’t take anything,” he said. At 1 a.m. water was up to his neck. He said others in his neighborhood were still waiting for rescuers in boats from atop their roofs.Maite Matheu, country director for the international humanitarian organization CARE, said Thursday that some 2 million Hondurans could be directly impacted by the storm.”The situation that we are seeing today is very, very alarming,” she said. “Mainly the people and families that need to be evacuated right now. There are dozens of families in some towns in the Sula valley who are on their roofs and are asking to be evacuated.”She said Honduras’ government did not have the capacity to rescue people.Giammattei, Guatemala’s president, said his Honduran counterpart Juan Orlando Hernández requested help, but that blocked roads made it impossible to do so.Matheu said her organization was helping gather information about the most pressing needs across Honduras. The food supply was a real concern, she said. The country’s road network is badly damaged, airports were closed and much of the Sula valley, the country’s most agriculturally productive, was flooded.”The impact on crops is going to be enormous,” Matheu said. The storm’s impact would only increase the pressure on a desperate population to migrate, she added.In Panama, at least eight people were reported missing after flooding and landslides in the province of Chiriqui, which borders Costa Rica.The U.S. National Hurricane Center forecast that parts of Nicaragua and Honduras could receive 15 to 25 inches (380 to 635 millimeters) of rain, with 40 inches (1,000 millimeters) possible in some isolated parts.When what’s left of the storm wobbles back into the Caribbean it will regain some strength and become a tropical storm again, forecasts show.And then Eta is predicted to slowly move toward Cuba and Florida, or at least close enough to Florida for forecasters to warn of 7 inches of rain for South Florida in the next five to seven days. And next week, Eta could even move into the Gulf of Mexico.”Whatever comes out (of Central America) is going to linger awhile,” said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. “I’m not convinced we’re done with Eta.”That’s because what’s left of Eta still has spin, which is hard to kill off, and that should help it reform, said NOAA hurricane and climate scientist Jim Kossin.Once it reforms and heads toward Cuba, it could meander in the area for awhile.”The winds aren’t going to be the problem. The rains are going to be the problem,” Klotzbach said.Eta will be so big, wet and messy that it doesn’t have to make landfall in already rain-soaked South Florida to cause a mess, Klotzbach said.”Slow-moving sprawling ugly tropical storms can certainly pack a precipitation wallop even if it doesn’t make landfall,” Klotzbach said. 
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Chile will host a third set of clinical trials for a vaccine against the coronavirus.President Sebastian Pinera announced Wednesday, AstraZeneca’s trial would follow a U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson trial that is already underway and a third by China’s Sinovac, whose first vaccine doses arrived in Chile on Wednesday.Pinera said Sinovac laboratory is going to conduct trials jointly with the Catholic University and the Milenio Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy.AstraZeneca is developing its COVID-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford.Pinera said Chile has been working for several months to ensure that Chileans have access to coronavirus vaccines.Pinera hopes to first make the vaccine available to the groups most at risk in the first few months of next year.
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Brazilian prosecutors are charging President Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Flavio, with corruption during his tenure as a state lawmaker.Rio de Janeiro’s state prosecutors accuse Flavio Bolsonaro of embezzlement, money laundering and operating a criminal enterprise from 2007 to 2018, when he allegedly took money from his staffers’ salaries when he was a Rio de Janeiro state lawmaker.Flavio and 16 others, including his former driver, Fabricio Queiroz, are implicated in the alleged scheme.Investigators reportedly began their probe into the money siphoning scheme in 2018, when auditors spotted unusual transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars into an account held by Queiroz.In an Instagram post, Flavio denied any wrongdoing, suggesting that the charges could be politically motivated because his father has previously campaigned on an anti-corruption platform.By late Wednesday, President Bolsanaro had not spoken publicly about the accusations against his son.
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Seven people, including two prominent social leaders, have been killed in a spate of attacks in northern Colombia, authorities and other sources said Wednesday.The attacks happened Tuesday in the northeastern department of Norte de Santander and Antioquia in the northwest, two of the areas most affected by violence perpetrated by armed groups battling over the lucrative drug-trafficking trade.Human rights activist Jorge Solano was killed when gunmen attacked his home in Ocana, Norte de Santander, the secretary of the local post-conflict and peace organization, Pedro Duran, told AFP.Solano, 61, was known for denouncing corruption and defending the victims of forced disappearances, said Duran.The U.N. Human Rights Council office in Colombia condemned the “murder” and called on authorities to “solve the crime.”In another attack, “renowned leader” Luis Hincapie was killed on his farm in El Penol, Antioquia, by armed men, according to the Twitter account of the local independent ombudsman, Indepaz.Killings in pool hallAlso, in Antioquia, five people were massacred “indiscriminately” in a pool hall in Nechi, the local mayor, Marcos Madera, said.Indepaz has recorded 71 massacres — of three or more people in the same incident — during 2020.Rights activists and social leaders are frequently the victims of the violence.According to the Somos Defensores NGO, 95 social activists were slain in the first half of 2020, a 61% increase ove the same period last year.Despite the historic 2016 peace deal that ended six decades of conflict between authorities and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country has been unable to end the wave of violence linked to drug trafficking.
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Forecasters say Tropical Storm Eta is moving slowly inland, bringing heavy rains that are producing life-threatening flash floods in parts of Central America.At last report Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the center of the storm was about 95 kilometers west of the coastal Nicaraguan city of Puerto Cabezas and moving west at about 13 kilometers per hour. It had maximum sustained winds of about 60 kph.Eta came ashore late Tuesday as a category 2 hurricane after hovering just off the coast of Nicaragua longer than forecasters expected. The Associated Press reports even before it made landfall, heavy rains were responsible for landslides that killed three people.Nicaraguan officials say Eta uprooted trees and damaged buildings as it moved inland.Forecasters expect it to move over northern Nicaragua, and then move across central Honduras through Thursday morning, carrying heavy rains that are likely to create more landslides in higher terrain, along with flash flooding and river flooding.While Eta is expected to weaken as it moves to the west, the system is forecast to emerge over the northwestern Caribbean Sea Friday. Some models suggest it will re-strengthen and head towards Florida in the southeastern United States. 
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A survey of some 300 members of parliament in 19 countries finds cases of human rights violations, including physical abuse, sexual violence, torture and arbitrary arrest of opposition MPs that are on the rise.In a new report, the FILE – Ugandan musician turned politician, Robert Kyagulanyi, also known as Bobi Wine, addresses a news conference over the government handling of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Kampala, Uganda June 15, 2020.For example, Ugandan police have arrested and released opposition figure Bobi Wine multiple times, most recently on Tuesday, when police also allegedly threw tear gas in his car. He has denied planning rallies that could disrupt public order.   The IPU has reviewed the cases of nine Ivorian opposition MPs who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained on charges of causing public disorder and spreading fake news. It says there is no evidence proving their guilt and that the charges appeared to be politically motivated in the run-up to elections held on October 31.     The IPU has been monitoring the situation in Venezuela for a number of years. IPU spokesman Thomas Fitzsimons tells VOA the level of intimidation and threats to which opposition MPs are subjected makes it unlikely that parliamentary elections on December 6 will be free and fair.     “The overwhelming majority of those 134 parliamentarians have been attacked, harassed or otherwise intimidated. As I said they can go from social media abuse to actual physical violence abuse,” he said. “So, there are different scales on the different levels on the scale of intimidation. I would say they are all being threatened in some way or other.”    Fitzsimons says a new case of great concern is that of Joana Mamombe, an opposition MP in Zimbabwe. He says she was detained in May after participating in a public protest to gain more protection for the poor during the coronavirus pandemic.   “But the country was in lockdown, so she was arrested on that pretext. And, in prison, the reports that we heard is that she was allegedly tortured, with violence on a sexual nature as well. So, we are very concerned about that report.”     IPU spokesman Fitzsimons says Mamombe has since been released on bail and reportedly re-arrested. He says the constant intimidation of detention, release and re-arrest is a strategy employed by many state authorities to weaken the opposition and stay in power. There was no reaction from any of the countries mentioned.  
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Hurricane Eta continues on a destructive path over the Central American nations of Nicaragua and Honduras hours after making landfall along the Nicaraguan coast. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Eta is moving inland over northeastern Nicaragua carrying maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers an hour.  Forecasters are warning of life-threatening storm surges, damaging winds and flash floods over portions of Central America.   Hurricane Eta made landfall Tuesday near the eastern Nicaraguan coastal town of Puerto Cabezas, carrying maximum sustained winds of 225 kilometers an hour, making it a Category 4 storm on the five-level scale that measures a storm’s potential destructiveness.  At least three people have been killed as a result of Eta. A 12-year-girl in Honduras was killed when her home was buried in a landslide, while two miners were killed in a mudslide in Nicaragua.A general view shows a flooded street as Hurricane Eta approaches, in Tela.Forecasters predict the storm will produce a storm surge that will raise water levels along the coastline from four to more than six meters – and rainfall throughout Central America of 25 to 51 centimeters, with isolated areas receiving more than 63 centimeters. They say flash flooding and landslides in elevated areas are likely. The storm is expected to move slowly through the region in the coming days. Forecasters are watching the potential for Eta to reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico late in the week, becoming a danger once again to areas farther north, though the Hurricane Center noted there is considerable uncertainty regarding its path. Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying the record for the busiest hurricane season ever observed in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin. In 2005, it took until the end of December to arrive at 28 named storms, putting this year nearly two months ahead. 
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Forecasters say Hurricane Eta is due to come ashore in Nicaragua Tuesday as an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane, bringing life-threatening storm surges, catastrophic winds, flash flooding and landslides to central America.
In its latest report, the National Hurricane Center says Eta was about 45 kilometers southeast of Puerto Cabezas on Nicaragua’s eastern coast. The storm has maximum sustained winds of about 230 kilometers per hour, and was moving to the west-southwest at about six kilometers per hour.
The forecasters predict the storm will produce a storm surge that will raise water levels along the coastline from four to more than six meters, and rainfall throughout central America of 25 to 51 centimeters, with isolated areas receiving more than 63 centimeters. They say flash flooding and landslides in elevated areas are likely.
The storm is expected to move slowly through the region over the course of the next several days. Forecasters are watching the potential for Eta to reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico late in the week, becoming a danger once again to areas farther north, though the Hurricane Center stated there is considerable uncertainty regarding that outcome.
Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying the record for the busiest hurricane season ever observed in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin and doing so at a breakneck pace.  
In 2005, it took until the end of December to arrive at 28 named storms, putting this year two months ahead.
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Nicaragua is bracing for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Eta. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the potentially catastrophic hurricane could make landfall early Tuesday, with winds in excess of 248 kilometers per hour.  Thousands of people on Monday began evacuating Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, where a hurricane warning is posted from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi.  The hurricane is located 75 kilometers east of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.  Forecasters warn of flooding and landslides, especially in central and northern Nicaragua and most of Honduras.  Eastern Guatemala, southern Belize and Jamaica are also expected to get heavy rain. Eta is already impacting life in Honduras. Cancellations are said to be coming in ahead of a five-day national vacation aimed at bolstering tourism and bringing some financial help to the pandemic weary economy.  Eta is the eighth Atlantic storm of the hurricane season, which ends November 30. 
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Several executives of a Dominican Republic gas company, including its owner, were arrested Monday in connection with a fire and explosion at the company’s bottling plant in Santiago last month that killed 11 people, including a newborn in a nearby residence.  Several others were injured when a gas leak ignited at the Coopegas liquefied petroleum gas plant on October 3. Prosecutor say the incident involved the mechanical failure of three safety valves intended to prevent the fire.   The Dominican Today newspaper identified the detained executives as Héctor Ramón Vásquez Sandoval, general manager; Aurilio Concepción, president; Roberto Antonio Polanco, operations manager, and Emilio Yan, manager of the affected station.  The paper said the Coopegas executives are accused of negligence and human failure. In another Coopegas matter, a court magistrate allege the company defrauded the government by operating its 20 stations under the rules of a cooperative to avoid paying taxes. 
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Nicaragua is bracing for the imminent arrival of Hurricane Eta. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the potentially catastrophic hurricane could make landfall early Tuesday, with winds in excess of 248 kilometers per hour.  Thousands of people on Monday began evacuating Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast, where a hurricane warning is posted from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi.  The hurricane is located 75 kilometers east of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.  Forecasters warn of flooding and landslides, especially in central and northern Nicaragua and most of Honduras.  Eastern Guatemala, southern Belize and Jamaica are also expected to get heavy rain. Eta is already impacting life in Honduras. Cancellations are said to be coming in ahead of a five-day national vacation aimed at bolstering tourism and bringing some financial help to the pandemic weary economy.  Eta is the eighth Atlantic storm of the hurricane season, which ends November 30. 
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Peru’s Congress on Monday approved a motion to initiate a process to remove President Martín Vizcarra from office over corruption allegations, a month and a half after he survived an earlier impeachment trial.Lawmakers approved the measure in a 60-40 vote with 18 abstentions. Vizcarra is set to present his defense before Congress on November 9, with another vote to follow.The move to oust Vizcarra follows media reports that the president allegedly accepted bribes of about 2.3 million soles ($637,000) from two companies that won public works tenders when he was the governor of the southern region of Moquegua. Vizcarra has denied the allegations.Several legislators during the debate said the allegations were serious enough to warrant a trial.”It is the least we should do,” said legislator Diethell Columbus, of the right-wing Popular Force Party of former presidential candidate and Vizcarra political adversary Keiko Fujimori.Peru´s president, who took office in 2018 and is constitutionally barred from seeking a new term, said some lawmakers are seeking only to generate “chaos and disorder” by pushing impeachment just months ahead of a presidential election slated for April 11.”There is absolutely no proof of the charges,” Vizcarra told reporters earlier Monday. “An impeachment trial destabilizes the country.”Vizcarra, who does not have his own party representation in the legislature and whose term ends in July, survived an ouster attempt on September 18 amid political tensions and an economic recession brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Only 32 of Congress’s 130 members voted to remove him.The political turbulence in copper giant Peru comes as the country surpassed 900,000 coronavirus cases and more than 34,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, with one of the highest fatality rates per capita in the world.
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Forecasters say Hurricane Eta is strengthening in the southern Caribbean and could become a major hurricane soon.
In its most recent report, the National Hurricane Center says Eta is about 265 kilometers east-northeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua and moving west at about 17 kilometers per hour. It has maximum sustained winds of about 150 kilometers per hour, making it a strong Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale by which hurricane strength is measured.
The hurricane center is expecting the storm to rapidly intensify over the next 24 hours, saying the system could become a major Category 3 hurricane by the time it reaches Nicaragua early Tuesday.  
The forecasters say the storm’s current track will take in further inland over Central America over the next several days. It is expected to move slowly and could bring 35- to 63 centimeters of rain and life-threatening flash flooding conditions to Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala by the end of the week. Landslides are possible in higher elevations.
Eta is the 28th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, tying a record set in 2005. That year — as was the case this year — the hurricane center ran out of names in the conventional alphabet and had to resort to the Greek alphabet. This is the first year any storm was named Eta.
The hurricane season ends at the end of November.
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The Vatican says Pope Francis’ comments on gay civil unions were taken out of context in a documentary that spliced together parts of an old interview, but still confirmed Francis’ belief that gay couples should enjoy legal protections.  
 
The Vatican secretariat of state issued guidance to ambassadors to explain the uproar that Francis’ comments created following the Oct. 21 premiere of the film “Francesco,” at the Rome Film Festival. The Vatican nuncio to Mexico, Archbishop Franco Coppola, posted the unsigned guidance on his Facebook page Sunday.  
 
In it, the Vatican confirmed that Francis was referring to his position in 2010 when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires and strongly opposed moves to allow same-sex marriage. Instead, he favored extending legal protections to gay couples under what is understood in Argentina as a civil union law.  
 
While Francis was known to have taken that position privately, he had never articulated his support while as pope. As a result, the comments made headlines, primarily because the Vatican’s doctrine office in 2003 issued a document prohibiting such endorsement. The document, signed by Francis’ predecessor as pope, says the church’s support for gay people “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”
 
The recent uproar gained even more attention because it turned out director Evgeny Afineevsky misled journalists by claiming Francis had made the comments to him in a new interview. A week before the premiere, when he was asked about the civil union comments, Afineevsky told The Associated Press that he had two on-camera interviews with the pope. In comments to journalists after the premiere, he claimed that the civil union footage came from an interview with the pope with a translator present.  
 
It turned out, Francis’ comments were taken from a May 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa that were never broadcast. The Vatican hasn’t confirmed or denied reports by sources in Mexico that the Vatican cut the quote from the footage it provided to Televisa after the interview, which was filmed with Vatican cameras.  
 
Afineevsky apparently was given access to the original, uncut footage in the Vatican archives.  
 
The guidance issued by the secretariat of state doesn’t address the issue of the cut quote or the fact that it came from the Televisa interview. It says only that it was from a 2019 interview and that the comments used in the documentary spliced together parts of two different responses in a way that removed crucial context.  
 
“More than a year ago, during an interview, Pope Francis answered two different questions at two different times that, in the aforementioned documentary, were edited and published as a single answer without proper contextualization, which has led to confusion,” said the guidance posted by Coppola.  
 
In the film, Afineevsky recounts the story of Andrea Rubera, a married gay Catholic who wrote Francis asking for his advice about bringing into the church his three young children with his husband.  
 
It was an anguished question, given that the Catholic Church teaches that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” The church also holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman, and as a result, gay marriage is unacceptable.  
 
In the end, Rubera recounts how Francis urged him to approach his parish transparently and bring the children up in the faith, which he did. After the anecdote ends, the film cuts to Francis’ comments from the Televisa interview.  
 
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”  
 
Francis’ comments about gays having the right to be in a family referred to parents with gay children, and the need for them to not kick their children out or discriminate against them, the Vatican guidance said.  
 
Francis was not endorsing the right of gay couples to adopt children, even though the placement of the quote right after Rubera told his story made it seem that Francis was.  
 
The pope’s comments about gay civil unions came from a different part of the Televisa interview and included several caveats that were not included in the film.  
 
In the Televisa interview, Francis made clear he was explaining his position about the unique case in Buenos Aires 10 years ago, as opposed to Rubera’s situation or gay marriage as a whole.  
 
In the Televisa interview, Francis also insisted that he always maintained Catholic doctrine and said there was an “incongruenza” for the Catholic Church as far as “homosexual marriage” is concerned.  
 
The documentary eliminated that context.
 
The Televisa footage is available online, and includes an awkward cut right after Francis spoke about the “incongruity” of homosexual marriage. Presumably, that is where he segued into his position as archbishop in favoring extending legal protections to gay couples.  
Neither the Vatican nor Afineevsky have responded to repeated questions about the cut quote or its origin. Francis is known to hunker down in silence when controversy mounts.
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Tropical Storm Eta strengthened quickly Sunday as it barreled west through the Caribbean en route to Nicaragua and Honduras, which it is expected to pound with potentially deadly wind and rain, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.Eta is forecast to become a hurricane overnight and plow into the northeast coast of Nicaragua and adjacent portions of eastern Honduras early Tuesday, the Miami-based NHC said.Latest projections say Eta will by then be a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, blowing winds of up to 177 kph (110 mph). That is stronger than the NHC had earlier predicted.”Once inland, Eta should quickly weaken over the mountainous terrain of Nicaragua and Honduras,” the NHC said.By midafternoon, Eta was 495 km (305 miles) east-northeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, moving west at 24 kph (15 mph) and blowing sustained winds of 105 kph (65 mph), the NHC said.Through Friday afternoon, Eta’s rains threaten to cause serious flooding and landslides in Central America. Jamaica, southern Haiti and the Cayman Islands may also be hit.By then, Eta is likely to have dumped 381-640 mm (15-25 inches) of rain on central and northern Nicaragua and much of Honduras, with up to 889 mm (35 inches) in some areas, the NHC said.Nicaragua’s government has issued a hurricane warning from the Honduras-Nicaragua border to Sandy Bay Sirpi. Honduras has put out a tropical storm warning from Punta Patuca to the border with Nicaragua. 
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Police in Quebec City early Sunday arrested a man on suspicion of killing two people and injuring five others in a stabbing rampage on Halloween near the provincial legislature in Quebec City.They say a man in his mid-20s has been arrested in connection with the Halloween night attacks and taken to a hospital.Police had earlier warned residents to remain indoors as they hunted for a man dressed in medieval clothing and armed with a bladed weapon who had left “multiple victims.”Spokesman Etienne Doyon said police were first notified of the stabbings near the National Assembly shortly before 10:30 p.m. Saturday.The five injured victims were taken to a hospital, and a spokeswoman said their lives do not appear to be in danger.There’s no word on a possible motive for the attacks.Doyon declined to offer any information about the two people who were killed, saying only that “Our thoughts are with the family of the people who died today.”Carlos Godoy, who lives in the area, said police K-9 units had searched his backyard as they hunted for the suspect.”It’s a full moon, it’s October 31st. It’s Halloween, and it’s a lockdown weekend. No one should be out on the streets,” Godoy said. “And I’m in an extremely quiet neighborhood because there are no tourists nowadays.” 
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Tropical Storm Eta formed in the Caribbean late Saturday, tying the record for most named storms in a single Atlantic hurricane season.The system reached maximum sustained winds of 65 kph late Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. It’s centered 435 kilometers southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.Forecasters expect Eta to become a hurricane by Monday. The system is forecast to be near the northeastern coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras by Monday night. A hurricane watch was issued for parts of both countries. Eta was moving west at about 24 kph.Eta is the 28th named Atlantic storm this season, tying the 2005 record for named storms. However, this is the first time the Greek letter Eta is being used as a storm name because in 2005, after the season ended meteorologists went back and determined there was a storm that should have gotten a name but didn’t.Hurricane season still has a month to go, ending Nov. 30. And in 2005, Zeta formed in the end of December.
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After the Canadian parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights concluded last week that China’s treatment of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region amounts to genocide, some experts and international human rights activists say the international community could be entering a new phase of action to hold officials in Beijing accountable.In its Oct. 21 statement, the committee said the detention of nearly 2 million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims, forced labor, “pervasive” state surveillance and repressive control were “a clear attempt to eradicate Uighur culture and religion.”“Based on the evidence put forward during the Subcommittee hearings, both in 2018 and 2020, the Subcommittee is persuaded that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party constitute genocide as laid out in the Genocide Convention,” the committee said in a news release.The U.N. Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University, said the committee’s move represents the first time a national legislative body has described the treatment of Uighurs in China as genocide.“This will put pressure [on] the executive branch of government to follow suit and respond accordingly,” Matthews told VOA.China has been accused internationally of arbitrary detention, forced indoctrination and torture of over a million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017.Approval by governmentThe committee called on the Canadian government to recognize the campaign as genocide, condemn China, and sanction officials involved in “grave human rights abuses.” It also asked the government to push for international access to the region and support organizations raising awareness on Uighurs.Committee chair Peter Fonseca told VOA that the suggestions included in the statement were “a unanimous proclamation on the part of the multiparty members of the subcommittee.”He said the committee report will be presented to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which can approve or reject its findings.Some experts say the findings are likely to proceed further in the country’s legislative branch and be presented to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet for approval.“The government has often followed the suggestions of the committee,” Ilan Orzy, director of operations at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, told VOA.Orzy said the Canadian government followed such a proceeding with regard to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.Canada recognized the actions by Myanmar authorities against the Rohingya minority as genocide in September 2018.The Canadian government has yet to announce whether it will act on the committee suggestions. In a statement shared with VOA, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said his government takes genocide allegations “very seriously.”“We will continue to work in close collaboration with our allies to push for these to be investigated through an international independent body and for impartial experts to access the region so that they can see the situation firsthand and report back,” Champagne said.‘‘We remain deeply disturbed by the troubling reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang and have publicly and consistently called on the Chinese government to end the repression of Uighurs,” he said.‘Vocational training’China rejects the claim that it is running a repressive campaign against Turkic minorities in Xinjiang. Beijing officials say they have sent Uighurs who were “poisoned” by religious extremism or who lagged behind in society to “vocational training centers” to deradicalize them and teach them new work skills.Last Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the committee’s statement “groundless” and called on Canada to stop interfering in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of Xinjiang-related matters.“The so-called genocide in Xinjiang is a rumor and a farce fabricated by some anti-China forces to slander China,” Zhao said at a press conference.Some observers charge that a possible move by the Canadian government to approve the committee findings and recognize the Uighur genocide could encourage other countries to follow suit.U.S. stanceLast Friday, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Foreign Relations Committee member, urged the U.S. government to formerly recognize the issue as genocide.Tuesday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a resolution to declare the Uighur campaign genocide.Peter Irwin, a senior program officer at the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, told VOA that those resolutions show the international community is ready to go beyond condemnation of China’s policies in Xinjiang toward holding party officials accountable.“The Canadian [parliamentary] subcommittee, to their credit, took the time to study the issue intensively, calling witnesses and analyzing reports, and concluded that what’s happening amounts to genocide,” Irwin said.Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said that discussions of genocide-labeling means those countries understand the severity of the Uighur situation, and their policymakers are willing to adjust their responses to the crisis.“There is growing momentum to recognize the situation as a genocide, and the decision of the subcommittee has greatly contributed to that. It is our hope that this move will be the start of a more meaningful and concrete push by the international community to demand that China stops the Uighur genocide,” Isa told VOA.
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