A caravan of about 2,000 Honduran migrants crossed into Guatemala on Thursday, hoping to make it into the United States, but it is unclear how far they can get. The caravan left San Pedro Sula on Wednesday, with most of the migrants allowed to enter Guatemala after submitting their documents to Honduran police at the border. Guatemala’s newly inaugurated President Alejandro Giammattei says Mexico has told him it will not let the migrants enter. Migrants walk along a highway in hopes of reaching the United States, near Agua Caliente, Guatemala, Jan. 16, 2020, on the border with Honduras. Hundreds of Honduran migrants started walking and hitching rides the day before at San Pedro Sula.Guatemala signed an agreement with the United States last year requiring migrants looking to come to the United States to apply for asylum in the U.S. while staying in Guatemala. The dangerous trip to Guatemala and the possibility of a long wait there for entry into the U.S. are not deterring the migrants, who say they are escaping poverty, gangs, violence and hopelessness in Honduras. “We have children and we don’t want our children to live through what we lived through,” one migrant said Thursday. A woman summed up her reasons for fleeing Honduras when she said, “In our country, you can kill yourself working and you can’t buy anything. You can’t achieve anything, The salaries are very low. It’s barely enough to eat.” Thousands of Central Americans headed to the U.S. border with Mexico in 2018, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to threaten sanctions against Latin American governments that did not try to stop the caravans. 
…

Seven people were killed in a bizarre religious ritual in a jungle community in Panama, in which indigenous residents were rounded up by about 10 lay preachers and tortured, beaten, burned and hacked with machetes to make them “repent their sins,” authorities said Thursday.Police freed 14 members of the Ngabe Bugle indigenous group who had been tied up and beaten with wooden cudgels and Bibles.Local prosecutor Rafael Baloyes described a chilling scene found by investigators when they made their way through the jungle-clad hills to the remote Ngabe Bugle indigenous community near the Caribbean coast Tuesday.Alerted by three villagers who escaped and made their way to a local hospital for treatment earlier, police were prepared for something bad, Baloyes said, but were still surprised by what they discovered at an improvised “church” at a ranch where a little-known religious sect known as “The New Light of God” was operating.”They were performing a ritual inside the structure. In that ritual, there were people being held against their will, being mistreated,” Baloyes said.Police and employees of the Public Ministry investigate near a mass grave with seven bodies at the indigenous region of Ngabe Bugle, Panama, Jan. 15, 2020, in this screen grab taken from Panamanian channel TVN Noticias.”All of these rites were aimed at killing them if they did not repent their sins,” he said. “There was a naked person, a woman,” inside the building, where investigators found machetes, knives and a ritually sacrificed goat, he said.The rites had been going on since Saturday, and had already resulted in deaths, Baloyes said.About a mile (2 kilometers) away from the church building, authorities found a freshly dug grave with the corpses of six children and one adult. The dead included five children as young as a year old, their pregnant mother and a 17-year-old female neighbor.”They searched this family out to hold a ritual and they massacred them, mistreated them, killed practically the whole family,” Baloyes said, adding that one of the suspects in the killing is the grandfather of the children who were slain.All the victims, and apparently all the suspects, were members of the same indigenous community.Ricardo Miranda, leader of the Ngabe Bugle semi-autonomous zone known as a Comarca, called the sect “satanic” and said it went against the region’s Christian beliefs.”We demand the immediate eradication of this Satanic sect, which violates all the practices of spirituality and co-existence in the Holy Scriptures,” Miranda said.’Message’ from GodApparently, the sect is relatively new to the area, and had been operating locally only for about three months.Things reportedly came to a head Saturday, when one of the church members had a vision.”One of them said God had given them a message,” Baloyes said. That message apparently boiled down to making everyone repent or die.The Ngabe Bugle are Panama’s largest indigenous group and suffer from high rates of poverty and illiteracy.It was not clear what belief or affiliations “The New Light of God” church has. A well-established evangelical church known as Luz del Mundo said in a press statement that it had no ties to the case.The area is so remote that helicopters had to be used to ferry the injured out to hospitals for treatment. They included at least two pregnant women and some children.
 
…

An Israeli court heard a case Thursday calling for restrictions to be slapped on NSO Group, an Israeli company that makes surveillance software that is said to have been used to target journalists and dissidents around the world.The case, brought by Amnesty International, calls for Israel to revoke the spyware firm’s export license, preventing it from selling its contentious product abroad, particularly to regimes that could use it for malicious purposes.“They are the most dangerous cyber weapon that we know of and they’re not being properly overseen,” said Gil Naveh, spokesman for Amnesty International Israel. “That is the reason why we think that their license should be revoked.”NSO is implicated in a series of digital break-in attempts and the court case is the latest pushback against the company and its product. Last year, Facebook sued the hacker-for-hire company in U.S. federal court for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with highly sophisticated spyware.Khashoggi Friend Says Israeli Spyware Played Role in His Killing

        An Israeli software company calls the allegation that its spyware played a part in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi "unfounded."

A fellow Saudi dissident and Khashoggi friend living in exile in Canada — Omar Abdelaziz — is suing NSO Group, alleging the Saudi government used NSO’s Pegasus spyware to track his and Khashoggi’s movements and communications.

The two dissidents had been working on a pro-opposition project targeting the Saudi government and calling for democracy in the…
In 2018, Amnesty said one of its employees had been targeted with the malware, saying a hacker tried to break into the staff member’s smartphone, using a WhatsApp message about a protest in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington as bait.The spyware has also been implicated in the gruesome killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. It is also said to be behind a campaign to compromise proponents of a soda tax in Mexico and an effort to hack into the phone of an Arab dissident that prompted an update to Apple’s operating system.An Associated Press investigation last year found that critics of NSO were targeted in elaborate undercover operations in which operatives tried to discredit them. NSO has denied involvement.NSO Group’s flagship malware, called Pegasus, allows spies to effectively take control of a phone, surreptitiously controlling its cameras and microphones from remote servers and vacuuming up personal data and geolocations.NSO does not disclose the identities of its clients, but they are believed to include Middle Eastern and Latin American states. The company says it sells its technology to Israeli-approved governments to help them stop militants and criminals. The company said it would not comment on the case because it revolves around a demand directed at Israel’s defense ministry, but last year NSO announced that it had adopted “a new human rights policy” to ensure its software is not misused.The Israeli Defense Ministry, which issues export licenses to Israeli defense and security companies, declined to comment.Reflecting the interest in the case’s outcome, the Tel Aviv courtroom on Thursday was packed, with many attendees forced to stand until the hearing was moved to a larger space. As with previous cases involving defense exports, judge Rachel Barkai ruled that the legal proceedings would be closed to media and she imposed a gag order on the case.“There is a tangible concern that if the hearing is open it will cause harm to the state’s security and to its foreign relations,” she said, before journalists were ushered out of the courtroom.Thursday’s hearing is expected to be the only one in the case, Naveh said, and a decision is set to be handed down in the coming days.
…

The U.S. Senate approved a new North American trade agreement Thursday, a key victory for President Donald Trump as the Senate officially opened an historic impeachment trial against him.The 100-member Senate approved the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by an overwhelming 89-to-10 bipartisan vote, sending it to Trump to be signed into law.“This historic agreement not only modernizes and re-balances our trade relationship with Canada and Mexico, but it promotes economic growth, creates jobs, and provides crucial certainty for farmers, workers and manufacturers,” U.S. Treasury Steve Mnuchin said in a statement.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the initial draft of the agreement proposed by the Trump administration “left American workers exposed to losing their jobs to Mexico,” high prescription drug prices and low environmental standards.Pelosi added that the USMCA was “transformed by Democrats’ leadership for American workers, American patients and the environment.”The USMCA replaces the 25-year-old North American Free Trade agreement, known as NAFTA.The legislation includes more stringent rules on auto manufacturing, e-commerce and labor provisions, but leaves largely unchanged the trade flows between the North American countries valued at $1.2 trillion.The measure was passed in December by the House of Representatives, where it received bipartisan support after Democrats secured amendments to its enforcement, environment, pharmaceutical and worker provisions.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell touted the measure’s approval as “a major win for country” and “a major win for the Trump administration.”But Senator Pat Toomey, a member of Trump’s Republican Party, offered a rare criticism of the deal.“It will mean higher prices for American consumers, who will have to pay more money for a car and therefore will have less money available for any of the other things they would like to consume.”Toomey added: “It will probably lead to an increase or acceleration in the shift of automation.”The pact aims to have more vehicles made in the U.S. and requires Mexico to revise its laws to facilitate the formation of independent unions, which should benefit workers and reduce the incentive for American companies to relocated their factories.The AFL-CIO, an association representing trade unions, endorsed the measure. But many environmental groups opposed it, maintaining that not only does it ignore climate change, but asserting that it would contribute to rising temperatures.  The USMCA had been delayed in the Senate due to political wrangling over the chamber’s impeachment trial of President Trump.The deal will not be fully implemented until it is ratified by Canada, whose House of Commons is expected to vote on it later this month. 
…

Armed security forces and civilian motorcycle groups loyal to Venezuela’s president forcefully blocked opposition lawmakers from entering the National Assembly building to hold a session on Wednesday.It’s the second time this month that lawmakers have been barred from from the building that houses the only branch of government out of control of President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government.Attempting to reach the legislative chamber, t he caravan of cars carrying the deputies dodged through downtown streets, but ultimately failed.Gunshots could heard near the cars, but no injuries were reported. Two SUV’s carrying the lawmakers came under attack by people on the street dressed in civilian clothes. They struck the rear window of one, shattering it.“The dictatorship is intent on militarily kidnapping the Federal Legislative Palace and using repressive instruments and paramilitary groups,” Guaidó said on Twitter, accusing Maduro’s government of following a “clumsy and erroneous path.”He said that the lawmakers had decided to hold the session at another location in the Caracas suburb of El Hatillo.The incident was part of a struggle for control of the opposition-controlled National Assembly and Venezuela as a whole, a nation suffering economic and social collapse that’s led estimated 4.5 million to emigrate.A once oil-wealthy nation, Venezuela has been locked in a political, economic and social collapse for the last five years. Basic medicines, food and gasoline are scarce, despite the fact Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves.The 36-year-old Guaidó leaped onto Venezuela’s political stage a year ago when he declared himself acting president under the constitution and vowed to to end Maduro’s rule. The United States and more than 50 other nations quickly backed him, saying Maduro’s reelection in 2018 was illegitimate.Guaidó was also blocked from the the National Assembly building early this month in a failed government attempt to prevent him from being reelected as the body’s leader.It’s unclear where Guaidó was during the attempted entry to the National Assembly building on Wednesday.Opposition lawmaker Delsa Solórzano said she was riding in a car with at least three other lawmakers that came under attack near the legislative building with rocks and sticks. She also reported hearing gunfire.“Evidently tried to kill us,” Solórzano said. “Today, our parliament is practically kidnapped.”
…

The U.N. human rights office says it is alarmed at the number of human rights defenders who were killed in Colombia last year. Human rights monitors have confirmed 107 activists were killed in 2019, but they say they are in the process of verifying 13 additional cases which, if confirmed, would bring the death toll to 120.They say the danger is continuing, noting that at least 10 activists reportedly have been killed during the first 13 days of this year. Human rights spokeswoman Marta Hurtado says the majority of killings happen in impoverished, rural areas where criminal groups and armed groups operate.”The single most targeted group was human rights defenders advocating on behalf of community-based and specific ethnic groups such as indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians,” Hurtado said. “The killings of female human rights defenders increased by almost 50 percent in 2019 compared to 2018.”Other factors contributing to the spate of killings are linked to the government’s peace agreement with the country’s main rebel group, the FARC, in September 2016. Hurtado says criminal groups and armed groups have taken over the illicit economies in areas vacated by the FARC.The government’s usual response to control violent situations is to send military troops, without tackling the structural causes behind the violence and discontent, according to Hurtado.”One answer should be to increase the military presence to control and to secure the area,” she said. “But, as well, tackling the chronic levels of poverty, the lack of the presence of the State providing basic services and other structural services that are not provided.”The U.N. human rights office is urging the Colombian government to make a strenuous effort to prevent attacks against human rights defenders, to investigate each and every case, and to prosecute those responsible for the violations.
 
…

Guatemala  swears in  Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative physician opposed to gay marriage and abortion, as its new president Tuesday while the country’s outgoing leader exits amid swirling corruption accusations.The 63-year-old Giammattei won the presidency on his fourth attempt in August for Vamos, a party founded in 2017 by politicians, businessmen and military officers on promises of battling poverty and providing better opportunities.Giammattei was scheduled to be sworn in before several Latin American leaders, among them Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Ivan Duque of Colombia and Lenin Moreno of Ecuador.One of the early challenges facing Giammattei will be an Asylum Cooperation Agreement signed by his predecessor with the United States government. There was significant opposition to the deal inside Guatemala. The U.S. began sending Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers to Guatemala under the agreement in November and recently said it would expand it to Mexicans. A similar deal signed with Honduras could send Guatemalan asylum seekers there.Giammattei inherits a country with grinding poverty: Fifty-nine percent of Guatemalans live below the poverty line, according to official figures, while nearly 1 million children below age 5 are estimated to live with chronic malnutrition.He has proposed to build what he calls a “Mayan Train,” high-speed rail with a line for cargo and another for passengers. The name mirrors a planned train project for neighboring Mexico that will travel between coastal resorts, cities and Mayan ruins in that country’s southeast.Giammattei will be working without a majority in Congress. His party captured 17 seats.The surgeon suffers from multiple sclerosis, a disease of the nervous system, and uses crutches to walk. He has also worked as a business consultant in the private sector.In 2006, Giammattei was the head of the country’s prison system when the interior ministry carried out a raid on the Pavon penal farm to regain control from the inmates. Thousands of police, soldiers and armed civilians raided the prison overnight and several inmates died in the operation.Authorities, bureaucrats and private citizens were arrested, tried and imprisoned for the raid, including Giammattei. After several months in jail awaiting trial he was acquitted and released.He takes over from President Jimmy Morales who spent much of his four-year term dodging corruption charges.The former television comedian who campaigned on a promise of “not corrupt, not a thief” will possibly be most remembered for kicking out a U.N. supported anti-corruption mission that was closing in on him and members of his family.Juan Francisco Sandoval, head of the special prosecutor against impunity office, said he hopes the future will be better without Morales. “He was the roadblock for the fight against corruption and impunity.”
…

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed alarm Tuesday at the “staggering number” of social activists killed in Colombia despite a peace accord aimed at improving conditions in poor, rural areas.According to the U.N., 107 human rights defenders were killed in 2019, a worrying number that could grow to 120 as investigations are completed. At least 10 activists have been reported killed in the first two weeks of 2020.”This vicious and endemic cycle of violence and impunity must stop,” said Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the high commissioner.The vast majority of the deaths happened in rural areas with higher-than-average rates of poverty and where illegal armed groups operate. Some of these areas were previously controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the rebel group that signed an historic peace accord in 2016.The U.N. pointed to challenges in implementing the accord, the presence of illegal armed groups in territory once controlled by the leftist rebels and the government’s military-focused response as all being partly to blame.The landmark agreement ending over five decades of conflict includes lengthy chapters outlining ways for the government to establish a presence in remote regions where the illicit drug trade flourishes. While some advances including the building of new roads and efforts at crop substitution have taken place, those parts of the accord are proving to be the most difficult and long-term to bring into action.”We acknowledge some positive steps,” Hurtado said, pointing to a recent security meeting. “However, the number of killings clearly shows much more needs to be done.”The numbersMore than half the killings took place in four provinces — Antioquia, Arauca, Cauca and Caqueta — and people advocating on behalf of specific community, ethnic, indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups were the most targeted.The killings of female activists increased by almost 50 percent between 2018 and 2019. The U.N. did not provide a specific number.The total number killed in 2019 is about the same or possibly a bit higher than the previous year, when 115 were killed.The U.N. is calling on the government of President Ivan Duque to redouble efforts to ensure a secure environment for civic engagement, increase the presence of state authorities and expand access to health and education.Duque won the presidency in 2018 on a platform that was critical of the peace deal, though he has not managed to reform any key components.The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, which is charged with monitoring implementation of the accord, published a study last April finding that work had begun on more than two-thirds of the agreement’s commitments.The study found progress at the two-year mark comparable to other peace processes around the world that the institute has studied.’Profoundly worrying’ developments Special Representative Carlos Ruiz, who heads the U.N. Verification Mission in Colombia, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that “significant strides” have been made but noted that continuing violence in conflict-affected regions remains a threat to peace.He pointed to “profoundly worrying” developments in recent weeks including territorial disputes between illegal armed groups that risk spreading into more widespread violence in areas like the province of Choco.Ruiz also highlighted the recent death of Lucy Villarreal, an activist killed just after completing a children’s workshop in the port city of Tumaco, where violence involving dissident rebels has flared in the peace deal’s aftermath.He said full implementation of the peace agreement holds the best hope for Colombia’s future.”Peace will not be fully achieved if the brave voices of social leaders continue to be silenced through violence and if former combatants who laid down their weapons and are committed to their reintegration continue to be killed,” he said.
 
…

The Academy Award nomination for a Brazilian documentary about the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff has once again laid bare the polarization of Latin America’s largest democracy.
    
In “The Edge of Democracy,” 36-year-old filmmaker Petra Costa uses her personal story to argue that Brazil’s democracy is at risk after the abrupt end to governments led by the leftist Workers’ Party.
    
With Rousseff’s removal in 2016, her conservative vice president, Michel Temer, assumed power and in 2018, far-right Jair Bolsonaro defeated the Workers’ Party candidate to win the presidency.
    
Leftist politicians said Monday’s nomination validates their interpretation of Rousseff’s impeachment as a soft coup, as Costa suggests. Rousseff’s mentor, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who recently was released from jail pending appeal of his corruption conviction, praised Costa on Twitter for “the seriousness in which she narrated this important time of our history.’
    
“Truth will prevail,” he wrote.
    
Conservatives fired back, slamming the film’s veracity and insisting Brazil’s first female president deserved to be ousted for manipulating budget figures.
   
 “Congratulations to filmmaker Petra Costa on her nomination for best fiction and fantasy,” the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, which was instrumental in Rousseff’s impeachment process, said on Twitter.
    
Roberto Alvim, Bolsonaro’s secretary of culture, also said Costa’s documentary amounts to fiction and told local newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that its recognition by Hollywood proves the culture wars are being waged internationally.
    
Costa, for her part, said on her social media channels that the documentary was urgent “in a time where the far right is spreading like an epidemic.”
    
The other films nominated for best documentary are “American Factory,”  “The Cave”  “For Sam” and “Honeyland.” The winning film will be announced at a Feb. 9 ceremony in Los Angeles.
…

Queen Elizabeth II said Monday that she has agreed to grant Prince Harry and Meghan their wish for a more independent life that will see them move part-time to Canada.The British monarch said in a statement that “today my family had very constructive discussions on the future of my grandson and his family.”
She said it had been “agreed that there will be a period of transition in which the Sussexes will spend time in Canada and the UK.” Harry and Meghan are also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.FILE – Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex react as they leave after her visit to Canada House in London, Jan. 7, 2020.”These are complex matters for my family to resolve, and there is some more work to be done, but I have asked for final decisions to be reached in the coming days,” the queen said.
In a six-sentence statement that mentioned the word “family” six times, the queen said that “though we would have preferred them to remain full-time working Members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.”
Monday’s meeting involved the queen, her heir Prince Charles and his sons William and Harry, with Meghan expected to join by phone from Canada.
…

The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on seven Venezuelans, the U.S. Treasury Department said, in Washington’s latest action to ramp up pressure on the government of  President Nicolas Maduro.
…

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Sunday that a monument will be put up to memorialize nine U.S.-Mexican dual citizens ambushed and slain last year by suspected drug gang assassins along a remote road in the northern border region near New Mexico.In remarks to members of the small town of La Mora, which was shattered by the Nov. 4 killings of three women and six children from the extended Langford, LeBaron and Miller families, Lopez Obrador said the first goal is to bring those responsible to justice.Speaking after meeting with victims’ relatives, the president said an agreement had been reached with municipal and Sonora state officials to establish a monument of some sort “here where these lamentable and painful events took place,” and also for special recognition of those who risked their lives to rush to the aid of victims and survivors.”So that we exalt this, the true solidarity: He who is willing to give his life for another,” Lopez Obrador said.He promised to meet with family members in two months to give them another in-person update on the investigation and to return in four to six months to present a plan on regional development including road improvements.The mostly bilingual American-Mexicans have lived in northern Mexico for decades and consider themselves Mormons, though they are not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The community’s origins in Mexico date to the official end of polygamy over a century ago by the LDS church, which prompted many families that continued the practice to establish colonies elsewhere. Many of those in northern Mexico have by now, over the generations, abandoned polygamy as well.La Mora is a hamlet of about 300 people in Sonora state while Colonia LeBaron is a larger town of over 2,000 on the other side of the mountains in Chihuahua; the two are linked by a bone-jarring and treacherous dirt road where the attack occurred as the women and children were traveling to visit relatives.The areas lie in the territory of rival drug gangs with the Sinaloa cartel of convicted kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman holding sway in Sonora and the Juarez cartel dominant in Chihuahua.The killings sowed grief and fear in the tightly knit communities, and dozens fled La Mora for the United States in the subsequent days out of concerns for their safety. What was once a tranquil and even idyllic life in a fertile river valley surrounded by mountains and desert scrub had grown increasingly tenuous as criminal gangs exerted their influence and fought each other, some said.”Broken hearts, defeated, and through the fault of crime. I personally do not understand how so many people continue to die in such a beautiful country, such good people and with such richness,” community member Margaret Langford said at Sunday’s ceremony. “I was born in Chihuahua but I have been living for 20 years here in La Mora, a place that was so tranquil and neighbors we treasure so much.””I love this  country and it pains me to my soul to think of not being able to live here,” Langford said. “This massacre has left us lost and destroyed. I ask God that it not be what defines our community..”Mexico has been posting homicide totals in recent years at all-time highs since comparable records began to be kept in the 1990s.Lopez Obrador repeated Sunday that his security strategy aims to address root causes of violence such as poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity, particularly for young people, rather than the military offensive launched in 2006 by then-President Felipe Calderon and continued under Lopez Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto.”Deprive the fish of water,” the president said “so there are no longer young people who want to be cartel killers.”Victims’ relatives said Thursday that U.S. authorities told them they had detained two suspects in the killings, and Mexican prosecutors said earlier in the week that more than 40 suspects had been identified.Previously, Mexican prosecutors said three men were arrested and charged with organized crime for drug offenses, though none apparently yet faced homicide charges in the case.Four other suspects were said to be under a form of house arrest, and the name of one suspect partially matched the police chief of the town of Janos, Chihuahua, near the eastern terminus of the connecting dirt road.Local media reported the chief had been on the payroll of La Linea drug gang, which is allied with the Juarez cartel.”I know there are things that do not take away the pain, that the pain remains in our hearts, but without doubt, justice, Mr. president, … will relieve a little bit the pain of these families,” Sonora Gov. Claudia Pavlovich Arellano said Sunday.
…

A decade after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 Haitians and left millions more homeless life has not improved for many survivors.    Ma Drapo, Sent Mari and Taba Isa, three refugee camps located in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is where survivors are living post-quake. Residents of Sent Mari told VOA Creole they lack clean water, sanitation and food.This resident of Taba Isa decries the lack of security. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)In Ma Drapo, a refugee camp for handicapped quake survivors, residents decry the violence.”There’s non-stop shooting, so we can’t leave in peace,” a woman told VOA Creole. “We are running around all day for fear of being shot. We (have to) grab our kids and run and sometimes we don’t even know where we’re going.”This Taba Isa resident says the government has abandoned them. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)At the Taba Isa camp, a woman told VOA Creole she had been relocated after the earthquake and has lived there ever since. “They initially told us it was for three years, but three years has become 10 years,” she said. “And we have no security, we are charged with protecting ourselves and I’d like to know if they have plans to construct houses for us at some point.”The mother of two said the residents are isolated, having no access to hospitals or adequate schools for their children.This mother of three says the government has not fulfilled its promises to build adequate homes for survivors. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)Another female resident spoke about the lack of attention. “In the beginning they were coming often to take care of us but it’s been a long time since we were visited (by government officials). We aren’t living well. If heavy rain falls, we’re at risk. Our children can’t go to school because of overcrowding,” she said.”If you’re asking about government assistance, it’s zero,” a male resident said. “When we call the police station, no one comes. Even if there’s an arrest warrant out against the person we are calling them about, they just ignore our calls.” Homes are seen in the Taba Isa earthquake survivor camp in Port au Prince, Haiti. (Renan Toussaint/VOA Creole)
…

Anti-government protests erupted again Sunday night in Iran for a second day of demonstrations against the military, which first denied and then admitted it mistakenly shot down a civilian Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 on board.”They are lying that our enemy is America, our enemy is right here,” one group of protesters chanted outside a university in Tehran.Videos showed protesters at other locations in the capital and in other Iranian cities.
Black-clad police, wearing protective riot helmets, massed in iconic Azadi Square south of the city center and at other landmarks. The police were equipped with water cannons and batons and brandished paintball guns, potentially to mark protesters to authorities. But there were no immediate reports of any crackdown on the protests.In an emotional speech before parliament, the head of the Revolutionary Guard apologized for the missile attack on the Ukraine International Airlines jet and insisted it was a tragic mistake.FILE – Chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hossein Salami speaks at a ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 21, 2019.”I swear to almighty God that I wished I was on that plane and had crashed with them and burned, but had not witnessed this tragic incident,” said Gen. Hossein Salami. “I have never been this embarrassed in my entire life. Never.”U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran against attacking the demonstrators.”To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” Trump said on Twitter. “Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Twitter, expressed “profound regrets” and apologized for the shoot-down of the Ukraine International Airlines jet. But he contended that ‘Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster.”U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien rejected Zarif’s claim in an interview on the Fox News Sunday talk show, saying, “First they cover it up,” then claimed the civilian aircraft veered toward a military base. He said Iran needs to investigate the accident, apologize for it, pay compensation to the victims’ families and “make sure it never happens again.”On Saturday in Tehran, protesters gathered near universities and called for the resignation of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and chanted, “Down with liars!” and “Death to dictator!”
VOA’s Persian News Service reported protests also spread to other areas of Iran, including the country’s third-largest city of Isfahan.  Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Iranian students demonstrate following a tribute to the victims of a Ukraine International Airlines crash, in front of Amirkabir University in Tehran, Jan. 11, 2020. Police later dispersed students chanting what were seen as “radical” slogans.Iranian officials told the truth about the circumstances of the crash only after it became apparent that the evidence on the ground from the doomed flight would not allow the Iranians to continue to lie, according to the New York Times newspaper.The plane crashed Wednesday, but Iran did not reveal that it had shot down the aircraft until Saturday.A Ukrainian official told TheNew York Times that its experts had gathered information at the crash site “despite apparent Iranian efforts to complicate the investigation, including by sweeping debris into piles rather than carefully documenting it.” Ukraine says the Kyiv-bound doomed flight took off as usual with no word to the crew about the ballistic missile attack.Oleksiy Danilov, the Ukrainian official heading the crash investigation, told The New York Times that the Iranians could no longer lie about the circumstances of the crash when “Ukrainian investigators found fragments of the top part of the airplane cabin that had been pierced by what appeared to be the shrapnel of a missile warhead.” Also Saturday, Iran briefly detained British Ambassador to Iran Robert Macaire, who was arrested during an anti-government protest in Tehran. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “The arrest of our ambassador in Tehran without grounds or explanation is a flagrant violation of international law. “The Iranian government is at a cross-roads moment. It can continue its march towards pariah status with all the political and economic isolation that entails, or take steps to deescalate tensions and engage in a diplomatic path forwards,” Raab said. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus tweeted about the detainment: “This violates the Vienna Convention, which the regime has a notorious history of violating. We call on the regime to formally apologize to the UK for violating his rights and to respect the rights of all diplomats.” The U.S. called on Iran to apologize to Macaire, who was reported to be “safe and well” after being released from custody.VOA’s Extremism Watch Desk and Persian News Network contributed to this report.
…

The Extremism Watch Desk and the Persian News Network contributed to this report.
Iran deployed riot police in Tehran, the capital, on Sunday as authorities braced for another day of protests after the military admitted to mistakenly shooting down a civilian Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 on boardDemonstrations were held in several Iranian cities Saturday, with protesters venting anger after news that Iranian officials lied about the country’s role in the deadly crash.U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran against attacking the demonstrators.”To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” Trump said on Twitter. “Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020In Tehran, protesters gathered near universities and called for the resignation of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and chanted, “Down with liars!” and “Death to dictator!” 
VOA’s Persian news service reported protests also spread to other areas of Iran, including the country’s third-largest city of Isfahan.  Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Iranian students demonstrate following a tribute to the victims of a Ukraine International Airlines crash, in front of Amirkabir University in Tehran, Jan. 11, 2020. Police later dispersed students chanting what were seen as “radical” slogans.Iranian officials told the truth about the circumstances of the crash only after it became apparent that the evidence on the ground from the doomed flight would not allow the Iranians to continue to lie, according to the New York Times newspaper.The plane crashed Wednesday, but Iran did not reveal that it had shot down the aircraft until Saturday.A Ukrainian official told TheNew York Times that its experts had gathered information at the crash site “despite apparent Iranian efforts to complicate the investigation, including by sweeping debris into piles rather than carefully documenting it.” Ukraine says the Kyiv-bound doomed flight took off as usual with no word to the crew about the ballistic missile attack.Oleksiy Danilov, the Ukrainian official heading the crash investigation, told The New York Times that the Iranians could no longer lie about the circumstances of the crash when “Ukrainian investigators found fragments of the top part of the airplane cabin that had been pierced by what appeared to be the shrapnel of a missile warhead.” Also Saturday, Iran briefly detained British Ambassador to Iran Robert Macaire, who was arrested during an anti-government protest in Tehran. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “The arrest of our ambassador in Tehran without grounds or explanation is a flagrant violation of international law. “The Iranian government is at a cross-roads moment. It can continue its march towards pariah status with all the political and economic isolation that entails, or take steps to deescalate tensions and engage in a diplomatic path forwards,” Raab said. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus tweeted about the detainment: “This violates the Vienna Convention, which the regime has a notorious history of violating. We call on the regime to formally apologize to the UK for violating his rights and to respect the rights of all diplomats.” The U.S. called on Iran to apologize to Macaire, who was reported to be “safe and well” after being released from custody.
…

“Everything that’s related to war and people trying to kill each other for the sake of land or oil, it’s always stupid,” Danny Gonzalez told Canada CTV News about Iran shooting down a Ukrainian jet that killed all 176 people on board.  Canada is coping with the news that 57 of the victims were Canadians. Many of them were Iranian-Canadians who had gone to Iran for the holidays and were on the first leg of their return home on the Kyiv-bound jet.“They came to Canada for a future; there is no future in Iran,” Mahnuash Jannesar, the co-owner of a combination grocery-restaurant in Edmonton, told The New York Times about her customers who died in the doomed flight. “It’s so sad.”Gonzalez said he started working at a Toronto advertising studio last year on the same day as Alvand Sadeghi, one of the victims. Sadeghi’s wife, sister and 5-year-old niece were also killed in the crash.Mourners attend a vigil in memory of Iranian student Amir Moradi, who was killed in the crash of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran, at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 10, 2020.Some Iranian-Canadians are upset that Iran has not expressed any sympathy for the victims’ families. Reza Akbari, in Edmonton, told The New York Times that “the amount of support we’ve seen from Canada versus our motherland is something collectively as Canadians we can be proud of. As an Iranian, I’m sad.”Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted Saturday that it mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian International Airlines flight earlier in the week, just hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. soldiers. Iran was retaliating for a recent U.S. drone attack that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.“That night we had the readiness for all-out war,” IRGC aerospace commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh said on state television. He added that the Revolutionary Guard had asked for commercial flights to be canceled, but the request was denied.Before Iran acknowledged shooting down the jet, some Canadians blamed the U.S. for the disaster.“If [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump hadn’t ordered the drone strike on Soleimani, all this wouldn’t happen, we wouldn’t be here today grieving,” Ardy Gharagozli told CNN in Toronto.Saba Saadat, a biology student at the University of Alberta, was another crash victim. Professor Meghan Riddell, the head of the university’s cell biology lab, told The Times that Saadat “was a Ph.D. disguised as an undergraduate.” Saadat’s sister and mother also died in the crash.“I’ve been trying to put into words how big a tragedy the Ukraine Airlines crash is for Canada,” journalist Muhammad Lila posted on Twitter. “To say it’s huge or massive just isn’t enough.”Iran has invited Canada, Ukraine, the U.S. and France to participate in the investigation of the crash.
…

In the face of mounting evidence, Iran acknowledged Saturday that it had shot down a Ukrainian jetliner by accident this week after it took off in Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard. Once Iran made the admission, after three days of denying it was responsible, the reaction came swiftly, from Iran and around the world. From Iran: General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aerospace division, said his unit accepted full responsibility for the shootdown. In an address broadcast by state TV, he said that when he learned about the downing of the plane, “I wished I was dead.” Hajizadeh said the missile operator mistook the 737 for a cruise missile and didn’t obtain approval from his superiors because of disruptions in communications. “He had 10 seconds to decide. He could have decided to strike or not to strike and under such circumstances, he took the wrong decision,” Hajizadeh said. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, expressed his “deep sympathy” to the families of the victims and called on the armed forces to “pursue probable shortcomings and guilt in the painful incident.” President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged his country’s responsibility. “Iran is very much saddened by this catastrophic mistake and I, on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran, express my deep condolences to the families of victims of this painful catastrophe,” the president said. Rouhani added he had ordered “all relevant bodies to take all necessary actions [to ensure] compensation” to the families of those killed. A leader of Iran’s opposition Green Movement, Mehdi Karroubi, called on Khamenei to step down over the handling of the downed airliner. FILE – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, right, leads a meeting of the emergency response team on the crash of the Ukraine International Airlines plane in Iran, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 9, 2020.From Ukraine: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked the U.S, Britain, Canada and others for information about the crash. He said it “undoubtedly helped” push Iran to acknowledge its responsibility. Zelenskiy said the crash investigation should continue and the “perpetrators” should be brought to justice. “It’s absolutely irresponsible,” Ukraine International Airlines Vice President Ihor Sosnovskiy told reporters. “There must be protection around ordinary people. If they are shooting somewhere from somewhere, they are obliged to close the airport.” From Canada: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demanded Iran provide “full clarity” on the downing of the plane, which Ottawa said had 57 Canadian citizens aboard. FILE – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference, Jan. 9, 2020, in Ottawa, Ontario.”What Iran has admitted to is very serious. Shooting down a civilian aircraft is horrific. Iran must take full responsibility,” Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa. “Canada will not rest until we get the accountability, justice and closure that the families deserve.” Foreign governments condemned the downing of the plane, with Ukraine demanding compensation. Canada, Ukraine and Britain, however, called Tehran’s admission an important first step. The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters contributed to this report. 
…

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has admitted it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian jetliner earlier this week.The Guard’s aerospace commander said on state television Saturday, “I take full responsibility and I will obey whatever decision is taken.” He said he “wished” he “were dead” when he learned about the fate of the aircraft.Earlier Saturday, Ukraine’s president had called for a full admission of guilt for the downing of the plane that killed all 176 people aboard.Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he also wanted “a full and open investigation, bringing those responsible to justice, the return of the bodies of the dead, the payment of compensation, official apologies through diplomatic channels.”Zelenskiy said later that Iran has provided enough “photos, videos and other materials” from the crash “to see that the investigation will be carried out objectively and promptly.”FILE – Photographs of student victims of a Ukrainian passenger jet which crashed in Iran are seen during a vigil at University of Toronto student housing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 8, 2020.Ukrainian experts in Iran have received “full cooperation” from Iran and have been given access to the crash site and the plane’s data recorders, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said. He said Ukraine’s team has “access to the recordings of conversations between the dispatchers of the flight control center at the airport in Tehran and our pilots.”Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has demanded “transparency and justice for the families and loved ones of the victims.”  Many of the passengers were Iranian-Canadians.  “This is a national tragedy, and all Canadians are mourning together.”Iran has admitted that its military made a horrendous miscalculation when it shot down a Ukrainian jetliner earlier this week in the outskirts of Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Twitter Saturday that Iran “deeply regrets this disastrous mistake.”Rouhani added: “Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people. Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake.” Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake. #PS752— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) January 11, 2020Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted on Twitter:  “A sad day. Preliminary conclusions of internal investigation by Armed Forces: Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster.  Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations.”Thumbs up for telling the truth. That matters in a world where lies have become the norm.— hope (@setiris) January 11, 2020The Ukrainian International Airlines flight was mistaken for a “hostile target” as it made a turn toward a “sensitive military center” of the Revolutionary Guard,” according to a military statement carried on state media.  “In such a condition, because of human error and in a unintentional way, the flight was hit.”The military said it had been at its “highest level of readiness” amid heightened tensions with the United States.The downing of the Ukrainian International Airlines jetliner, a Boeing 737, happened just hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. soldiers in response to last week’s U.S. drone attack that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.Iran had initially denied that it was responsible for the downing of the jet, however, U.S. and Canadian intelligence said they believed Iran shot down the aircraft.Payman Parseyan, a prominent Iranian-Canadian told the Associated Press:  “Iran is responsible for its own military defense equipment.  While it has the right to defend itself, as it should to protect its own people, it should also have the responsibility with that right to make sure their defensive systems aren’t targeting civilian aircraft.”The flight was en route to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, a connection stop for many Iranian-Canadians and Iranian students studying in Canada. There were 57 Canadians among the passengers. 
…

El Salvador has passed a new law on internally displaced people that the U.N. refugee agency says will offer a new lease on life for tens of thousands of victims forcibly displaced by gang violence and organized crime.The U.N. refugee agency reports gang violence has forcibly displaced an estimated 71,500 Salvadorans between 2006 and 2016 within their own country.  Over the last few years, the agency reports the malign grip of organized crime in El Salvador and other countries in Central America has sent an increasing number of people fleeing to the United States in search of protection.  UNHCR spokeswoman Liz Throssell tells VOA internal displacement as a result of organized crime and criminal gangs continues to be an extremely serious problem in El Salvador and Honduras.“So, what we are doing is we are welcoming the fact that the Salvadoran authorities are really taking this first step to address the problem of internal displacement,” Throssell said. “I think clearly, if there are efforts to prevent internal displacement, that is also going to have a knock-on effect to external displacement.” These are still early days, as El Salvador’s National Assembly just passed the law on Friday and has yet to be implemented.  The law aims to protect, aid and offer solutions to the tens of thousands of victims of forced displacement.  Under its provisions they would gain access to humanitarian aid and have basic rights restored, including effective access to justice.Throssell says the law could have a lasting positive impact on the lives of the more than 70,000 uprooted by gang violence once it is signed into law by President Nayib Bukele.“The law reflects the growing momentum in Central America and beyond to recognize and respond to the phenomenon of internal displacement,” Throssell said. “In Honduras, where an estimated 247,000 people have been displaced by violence within their own country, the National Congress is considering legislation similar to the law passed in El Salvador.” Throssell says Mexico also recognizes the serious impact of internal displacement and has expressed its commitment to pass similar legislation at the federal level.
…

Iran announced Saturday that its military shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet earlier this week in the outskirts of Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard. It said it was unintentional.The downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight happened just hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. soldiers in response to last week’s U.S. drone attack that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. No one was wounded in the attack on the bases.Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani blamed the tragedy on “threats and bullying” by the United States after the killing of Soleimani. He expressed condolences to families of the victims, and he called for a “full investigation” and the prosecution of those responsible.“A sad day,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted Saturday on Twitter. “Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster. Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations.”Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a statement saying the crash investigation should continue and those responsible should be brought to justice. He said Iran should compensate victims’ families, and he requested “official apologies through diplomatic channels.”Military statementState media carried the military statement. It said the Ukrainian plane was mistaken for a “hostile target” after it turned toward a “sensitive military center” of the Revolutionary Guard. The military was at its “highest level of readiness,” it said, amid the heightened tensions with the United States.“In such a condition, because of human error and in a unintentional way, the flight was hit,” the statement said. It apologized for the disaster and said it would upgrade its systems to prevent future tragedies.It also said those responsible for the strike on the plane would be prosecuted.FILE – Photographs of students who were on a Ukrainian passenger jet that crashed in Iran are seen during a vigil at University of Toronto student housing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 8, 2020.The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, at least 57 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials. The Canadian government had earlier lower the nation’s death toll from 63.“This is the right step for the Iranian government to admit responsibility, and it gives people a step toward closure with this admission,” said Payman Parseyan, a prominent Iranian-Canadian in western Canada who lost a number of friends in the crash.“I think the investigation would have disclosed it whether they admitted it or not. This will give them an opportunity to save face.”Why flights allowedIran’s acknowledgement of responsibility was likely to renew questions of why authorities did not shut down the country’s main international airport and its airspace after the ballistic missile attack, when they feared U.S. reprisals.It also undermines the credibility of information provided by senior Iranian officials. As recently as Friday, Ali Abedzadeh, the head of the national aviation department, had told reporters “with certainty” that a missile had not caused the crash.Germany’s Lufthansa airline and its subsidiaries have canceled flights to and from Tehran for the next 10 days as a precautionary measure, citing the “unclear security situation for the airspace around Tehran airport.” Other airlines have been making changes to avoid Iranian airspace.Britain’s Foreign Office has advised against all travel to Iran and against all air travel to, from or within the country.The Associated Press contributed to this report.
…

The worst had passed, it seemed, and the United States and Iran no longer appeared poised at the edge of war.“All is well!” President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday night, days after a U.S. drone strike killed Iran’s most powerful general, and Iran, after a barrage of missiles, had signaled it was stepping back from further escalation.But 27 seconds before Trump’s tweet, commercial flight trackers had lost contact with a Ukrainian International Airlines jet that had just taken off from Tehran’s main airport. On board were 176 people, including 138 passengers on their way to Canada and at least 63 Canadian citizens and 11 Ukrainians. The plane, which never made a mayday call, slammed moments later into the ground.Everyone on board died. They were students, newlyweds, doctors and parents. The youngest was a 1-year-old girl, Kurdia Molani, who was flying back home with her parents to the Toronto suburb of Ajax.By late Thursday, Western leaders said that Iran had most likely shot down the jetliner with a surface-to-air missile — probably by accident. The loss of so many lives transformed the U.S.-Iran confrontation, which had seemed to conclude with limited bloodshed.Instead, what had begun with a drone attack on Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s motorcade at the Baghdad airport had suddenly rippled outward until dozens of Iranian-Canadians, dozens of Iranian students studying in Canada, were dead.“The community is overwhelmed with mourning and sadness,” said Payman Parseyan, a prominent Iranian-Canadian in western Canada, counting through the names of the friends he had lost. Photographs of student victims of a Ukrainian passenger jet which crashed in Iran are seen during a vigil at University of Toronto student housing in Toronto, Canada Jan. 8, 2020.There was Pedram Mousavi and his wife Mojgan Daneshmand, both of them engineering professors, and their two daughters, Daria and Dorina Mousavi.There was Dr. Shekoufeh Choupannejad, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and her two daughters, Saba and Sara Saadat. It seemed impossible.Some in Canada quickly blamed Trump for the disaster.“This is insane. Sickening. Imagine having a family member on that plane,” said Rob Kent, a 42-year-old Toronto resident.“One man, and only one, is responsible for those deaths. And he will never face consequences for them.”But Parseyan wasn’t so sure.“It takes two to tango,” he said. “It’s not hard to see the downing as a result of the escalation between the two countries. However, Iran is responsible for its own military defense equipment. While it has the right to defend itself, as it should to protect its own people, it should also have the responsibility with that right to make sure their defensive systems aren’t targeting civilian aircraft.”Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has at times had a rocky relationship with Trump, was careful not to say the U.S. strike was responsible for what happened.“I think it is too soon to be drawing conclusions or assigning blame or responsibility in whatever proportions,” he told reporters.But, he said, an accidental missile strike would compound the grief of so many people.“My thoughts instantly went to how much harder this must make it for those families who are experiencing just a terrible amount of grief right now,” he said.Flowers and tributes are placed outside the Iranian Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 10, 2020, with a poster that reads: “Tehran – Kyiv, we’re mourning” for the victims of the Ukrainian plane that crashed on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran.Trudeau met privately with families of some of the victims on Friday.Many in Canada simply struggled to make sense of the disaster.“If something like this happened as an accident, it’s much easier to take in than when you hear that maybe it got shot,” said Nina Saeidpour, a Calgary real estate agent whose friend Kasra Saati was among the victims. “We’re just trying to figure out what happened.”Ukrainian flights out of Tehran are often full of Iranian-Canadians and Iranian students studying in Canada, particularly after the long holiday break. Going back and forth via Kyiv is one of the most affordable routes between the two countries, and avoids stopovers in the United States, which is difficult for most Iranians.At least 17 Canadian universities have confirmed that they lost students, professors or researchers.Until the crash, the killing of Soleimani had seemed to end fairly quietly — at least for the U.S.A stampede at the general’s funeral, jammed with mourners, had left 56 people dead and Iranian missile strikes against Iraqi bases housing American troops had injured no one. Iran appeared to have carefully calibrated the missile attacks to avoid causing further U.S. retaliation, giving early warning to its Iraqi allies to avoid casualties.Iran has “concluded proportionate measures,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted after the missile barrage.Canada is one of America’s oldest and closest allies, but Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, noted that Trump has said nothing about the dead Canadians.“The unconcern certainly comes across,” he said. “Not a word of sympathy.”By Thursday night, Trump had yet to mention Canada’s tragedy.Instead, in a campaign rally  in Toledo, he told crowds that Soleimani’s killing was “American justice,” while deriding Democrats for questioning his decision to carry out the attack without first consulting Congress.He also noted that America was ready to retaliate if Iran’s missile attacks had caused any casualties.“You have no idea,” he told the cheering crowds. “A lot of people got very lucky.” 
…

The Trump administration is banning charter flights to Cuban cities besides Havana in a new tightening of U.S. restrictions on the island.In October, the administration banned commercial flights to cities outside the capital.The State Department said in a press release Friday that charter operators would have 60 days to wind down their flights to Santiago, Holguin and seven other cities across the island, and put a new restriction on the number of charter flights to Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport.”Today’s action will further restrict the Cuban regime’s ability to obtain revenue, which it uses to finance its ongoing repression of the Cuban people and its unconscionable support for dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in the statement.The new restriction leaves both leisure travelers and Cuban-Americans without an easy way to travel to destinations outside the Cuban capital. Driving from Havana to eastern Cuba can take more than 12 hours on poorly maintained and often dangerous roads.
 
…

Ten years ago, Herlande Mitile was left disabled by the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti. Today, she uses a wheelchair jury-rigged with a piece of string, which means she cannot go far.Result: she is trapped in her village outside Port-au-Prince. It was meant to be a model for reconstruction of the country after the disaster.Instead, the 36-year-old Mitile — who once worked in the capital — is dependent on her neighbors to survive.”The doctor told me that if I went to physical therapy, I might walk again, but you have to go into the city for that. You need money for public transport and I don’t have any,” she explained.”That’s how I have become even more handicapped than I was to begin with,” added Mitile, who has metal plates screwed into her hip and spine.Before January 12, 2010, she did not know a thing about earthquakes or the damage they can do.But on that Tuesday, more than 200,000 Haitians were killed by the roaring temblor, many of them crushed to death when substandard concrete buildings crumbled on top of them.Mitile was rescued from the debris eight days after the 7.0-magnitude quake. She was alive, but gravely injured.A girl walks in Croix des Bouquets, 12.9kms (8 miles) to the northeast of Port-au-Prince, on Dec. 30, 2019.Potemkin villageAfter months in a makeshift camp, hundreds of which dotted the Port-au-Prince landscape after the tragedy, Mitile and her two daughters ended up in Village Lumane Casimir.Named for one of Haiti’s greatest singers, the community – about 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside Port-au-Prince – was created by the government, which offered lodging there to about 50 people disabled in the quake.The government had hoped it would be an example or urban development for an impoverished country mired in corruption, and which to this day has scant real estate records.The community was to have 3,000 quake-resistant homes, a market, an industrial area, police and fire stations, a school and a pharmacy.On paper, it was a dream community. But the plans never came to fruition.Like hundreds of other construction sites during the decade when the Petrocaribe program was running, the village was abandoned in 2014 with more than half the buildings undone.Scandal and corruption The ambitious project died in the swirling Petrocaribe corruption controversy that sparked an eruption of public anger in 2018 — anger that remains to this day.Since the middle of that year, the public has regularly demonstrated in Haiti calling for more transparency in how the funds from Venezuela’s Petrocaribe program were handled.The scheme had allowed struggling Haiti to buy petroleum products more cheaply and on credit, but it was plagued by allegations of misuse of aid money allocated by Caracas.The financial upheaval that resulted from the scandal doomed the village project, and the public administrative office on site to collect rent closed, creating a sort of real estate loophole.So people kept coming to the complex, because all of a sudden, it was a great deal.”I came to live here because rent had become too high in my old neighborhood,” explained William Saint-Pierre, who simply squatted in one vacant house.Saint-Pierre pays no rent for his two-room dwelling, and doesn’t pay any taxes on his off-book drinks business.But he also likes the safety of the village with its neatly arranged, brightly colored homes.”In the cities after five or six o’clock, you have to stay inside, and doors have iron gates. Look around us — at my little wooden door, at homes without a security wall,” Saint-Pierre said.”I’m getting too old to hear gunshots at all hours of the day and night,” added the 62-year-old.
 Boulva Verly, 34, tends to his son Woodyna Verly, 3, at their in Croix des Bouquets, 12.9kms (8 miles) to the northeast of Port-au-Prince, on Jan. 2, 2020.Isolation Despite some benefits, including the absence of gang violence, Village Lumane Casimir is nevertheless geographically isolated and without any officials to run it.That puts its most vulnerable residents at even higher risk.Mitile cannot get around so she cannot find a job. She gets no public assistance. So she has to rely on handouts from neighbors.”Sometimes, I’ve wanted to die,” she admits, once her daughters aged 12 and 16 are out of earshot.”When my neighbors cook, they call my little one and tell her to come get a bowl for me,” she says, tapping nervously on her damaged wheelchair.”Before January 12 (the quake), we got by, but now, I’m worse than a baby.”In the village, which is effectively run by the residents themselves, those still suffering from injuries sustained in the quake and those who came seeking a better life say they feel forgotten by the government.”If we had to wait for them to make good on their promises, we would be dead,” Mitile says.”There is no government. I am my own government.” 
…

Iran has invited the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. accident investigation agency, to participate in the probe of the Ukrainian Boeing commercial jetliner that crashed near Tehran earlier this week.The NTSB said in a statement Thursday it had received “formal notification” about the crash from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board of the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran and is sending “an accredited representative to the investigation of the crash.”Iran has also invited Boeing, the U.S. manufacturer of the plane, to be a part of the investigation team.It is not, however, immediately clear what level of participation the two U.S. entities would have in the investigation because of the U.S. sanctions placed on Iran and the heightened tensions between the two countries.Ukraine is also taking part in the investigation.A color-infrared view shows the area where an Ukraine International Airlines plane crashed after takeoff from Iran’s Imam Khomeini airport, on the outskirts of Tehran, Maxar’s WorldView-2 satellite image taken Jan. 9, 2020.The latest development comes as U.S. President Donald Trump publicly voiced suspicion that Iran may have accidentally shot down the Ukrainian airliner.“Somebody could have made a mistake on the other side,” said Trump of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. “Some people say it was mechanical. Personally, I don’t think that’s even a question.”Ballistic missile attackThe crash occurred just hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. soldiers in response to last week’s U.S. drone attack that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.Iranian officials have maintained the Boeing 737-800, at an altitude of 2,400 meters, suffered a catastrophic engine failure early Wednesday, local time. All 176 people on the plane bound for Kyiv died, including 63 Canadians.Mourners attend a vigil at University of Toronto student housing for the victims of a Ukrainian passenger jet, which crashed in Iran, in this still image taken from a video, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 8, 2020.Government sources have told VOA that U.S. officials have examined satellite data and imagery leading them to believe the airliner, just after taking off from Tehran, was hit by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile after being targeted accidentally.A U.S. official confirmed to VOA that he is confident the plane was shot down by Iran.“At some point they’ll release the black box. Ideally, they’ll get it to Boeing,” Trump added in remarks to reporters in the White House Roosevelt Room Thursday.Video of the aircraft shows it breaking up in the air in a fireball over Iran.The head of Iran’s of Civil Aviation Organization denies the plane could have been hit by a missile.“Scientifically, it is impossible that a missile hit the Ukrainian plane and such rumors are illogical,” ISNA quoted Ali Abedzadeh as saying.The New York Times posted video on its website late Thursday that the newspaper identified as “verified video showing the moment a Ukrainian airliner was hit in Iran.” The Times said the video, provided by Maxar Technologies, appeared to show a missile hitting a plane, which did not explode immediately. The Times said the aircraft turned back “toward the airport ablaze before it exploded.”Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the press, Jan. 9, 2020, in Ottawa, Canada. He said Canada had intelligence from multiple sources indicating that a Ukrainian airliner that crashed near Tehran was mistakenly shot down by Iran.Canada and UkraineThe governments of Ukraine and Canada are not accepting the initial assessment by Iran that the cause of the crash appeared to be a mechanical issue.Citing what he called “intelligence from multiple sources,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that “the intelligence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”Trudeau added, “This may well have been unintentional.”Andriy Shevchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, expressed solidarity with Canada.“We, Ukrainians, share the pain that Canadians feel, and the stories that we see on television there are just as heartbreaking to us as the stories about our flight attendants and our pilots that we see on Ukrainian television,” Shevchenko told VOA’s Ukraine service Thursday. “We just feel that we have to walk through this pain together.”Asked if Trudeau’s announcement would hinder the investigation, Shevchenko said he wouldn’t speculate.“I wouldn’t speculate on the reasons of the crash either,” he said, “but I would say that it is in the everyone’s interest, including Iran, to have very good, transparent and genuine investigation into this tragedy. I think that truth and only truth is something that can get us moving forward.”Flowers and candles are placed in front of the portraits of the flight crew of the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed in Iran, at a memorial at the Boryspil International airport outside Kiev, Ukraine, Jan. 8, 2020.Sixty-three of the crash victims were from Canada, which has more than 200,000 citizens of Iranian descent. It is also popular with Iranian students.“I’m glad that Prime Minister Trudeau is taking this so seriously, but I was saddened and angry that the evidence points to an Iranian missile being responsible for the crash,” Avideh Montmaen-Far, president of the Council of Iranian Canadians, told VOA’s Persian service.“I hope Canada and other international experts will be involved in order to ensure the investigation is thorough, because families of the victims deserve truth and closure,” she said.Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s Security Council, said there were several working theories regarding the crash, including a missile strike.“A strike by a missile, possibly a Tor missile system, is among the main [theories], as information has surfaced on the internet about elements of a missile being found near the site of the crash,” he told reporters.Britain urges full investigationIn Britain, government officials told reporters it is looking into “very concerning” reports the plane had been struck by a surface-to-air missile.Following a phone call Thursday between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the British government said there needs to be “a full, credible and transparent investigation in what happened.” But British officials added that they did not think the downing of the jet was intentional.The global security risk company IHS Markit issued a briefing Thursday claiming that the UIA flight was hit by an SA-15 missile fired by a unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.Security officers and Red Crescent workers are seen at the site where the Ukraine International Airlines plane crashed after takeoff from Iran’s Imam Khomeini airport, on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2020.Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister said his government has sent a team of experts who are on the ground in Iran, working with their Iranian counterparts to sift through the crash debris for evidence of the cause.“Our priority is that all the pieces of information should be collected and preserved,” Sergiy Kyslytsya told a small group of reporters in New York. “On the black boxes, there are rules and they should be followed, and I am looking forward to the full cooperation of Iran — it is in their best interest.”He discouraged speculation and conspiracy theories, saying they would hurt the families of the victims.“My other concern is that the international protocols, conventions and regulations should be duly implemented when it comes to the investigation,” Kyslytsya said. Investigators in Iran said the voice and data recorders from the Boeing 737 aircraft, built in 2016, were recovered from the crash site on the outskirts of the Iranian capital, but that the so-called black boxes were damaged and some data had been lost.The Convention on International Civil Aviation, to which Iran is a signatory, does not require Tehran to hand over the data recorders to the NTSB or Boeing, Andriy Guck, a Ukraine-based attorney and aviation expert, said.“There is a duty to investigate,” Guck told VOA’s Ukrainian Service in a phone conversation. “Iran can decide to investigate the black boxes by itself or transfer them to a foreign laboratory. But if the Iranians do not allow anyone else to participate in the examination of the boxes, it will raise doubts about their investigation.”VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb, VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin, U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer, Jamie Dettmer, Michael Lipin of VOA Persian, and Tatiana Vorozhko of VOA’s Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.
…