U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Central American governments to do more to help contain illegal immigration and voiced concerns about the health of local democracy and human rights during a visit to the region on Tuesday. Speaking at a joint news conference with Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado, Blinken said the United States wanted to hear from its partners in the region about their shared commitment to managing migratory pressures. “Good governance is crucial for confronting the challenges and seizing the opportunities of this moment, and yet we meet at a moment when democracy and human rights are being undermined in many parts of the region,” Blinken told reporters. Blinken cited erosion of judicial independence, crackdowns on independent media and NGOs, as well as the suppression of anti-corruption efforts to illustrate his point, noting that the United States had also suffered its own setbacks. U.S. President Joe Biden has been under pressure to reduce a sharp increase in undocumented immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office in January. Regional cooperation to address the issue was now more important than ever, said Blinken, who traveled to Costa Rica to hold talks with leaders from Central America and Mexico. Many immigrants stopped at the U.S. border are from three violent and impoverished Central American countries, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, which Washington has pledged aid in return for commitments to improve local governance. That drive has been clouded by concern about graft, cronyism, signs of authoritarianism and efforts to block the appointment of judges with track records of tackling corruption. The United States has promised to help poorer countries in the fight against COVID-19 with vaccines, and Blinken said the government would in the next week or so set out plans for how millions of doses would be distributed. 
 
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The Belarusian democratic opposition and some Western governments are calling for harsher sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime following the forced diversion in late May of an international airliner to arrest a Belarusian dissident blogger on board. Analysts warn if there is not a strong response, other authoritarian governments around the world might resort to the same tactic to arrest dissidents. VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka has more.Produced by: Ihar Tsikhanenka  
 
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday laid flowers at a makeshift memorial in front of parliament for 215 Indigenous students whose remains were discovered last week at a former boarding school.The grim find came last week at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the largest of a network of boarding schools set up in the late 19th century to forcibly assimilate the country’s Indigenous peoples.Trudeau observed several minutes of silence and knelt before the heaps of children’s shoes and toys left at the Centennial Flame in Ottawa, before speaking briefly with an Indigenous passerby.’Every child matters’Among the tributes at the memorial were messages of condolence, along with one that read: “Every child matters.”Marking the start of National Indigenous History Month, Trudeau later tweeted: “This is a painful reminder of what took place at residential schools and the impacts still felt today. We cannot hide from this.”Residential schools were a reality — a tragedy that existed in our country — and we have to own up to it,” he wrote.”We all have a role to play in dismantling systemic inequalities and discrimination – it starts with acknowledging the truth about these past wrongs … and honoring the heritage, cultures, and traditions of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples.”Take-note debateA take-note debate was to be held in parliament later Tuesday, allowing the government to solicit lawmakers’ views on future Indigenous policies.The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc tribe in the western province of British Columbia announced last week it had used ground-penetrating radar to confirm the remains of the 215 students who attended the school near the city of Kamloops.It was operated by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Canadian government from 1890 to 1969, before Ottawa took over its administration and closed it a decade later.On Monday, Trudeau expressed Canada’s grievance while pledging “concrete actions” in support of Indigenous communities left traumatized by the news.Some 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis youngsters in total were forcibly enrolled in the boarding schools, where students were physically and sexually abused by headmasters and teachers who stripped them of their culture and language.At least 4,100 died, according to a truth and reconciliation commission, which estimated the actual toll was much higher. 
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European Union government and Parliament negotiators reached a deal Tuesday on rules that will force large multinational companies to disclose how much revenue and tax they pay in the 27-nation bloc and how much they pay in countries considered tax havens by the EU. The new law, proposed by the European Commission in 2016, is part of the EU’s efforts to fight tax avoidance by large international companies at a time when the EU badly needs cash to finance an economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the new law, multinational corporations with a turnover of more than $916 million annually in two consecutive years will have to declare profits, tax and number of employees in EU countries and in countries on the EU list of noncooperative jurisdictions. But data on tax paid in other countries outside the EU and not on the tax havens blacklist will only be given in aggregated form, as EU governments did not want to agree to a more detailed country-by-country breakdown. The Oxfam charity group criticized that, saying many of the world’s tax havens were not on the EU list of noncooperative jurisdictions and therefore would avoid scrutiny. “Transparency for only the 27 EU member states and the 21 currently blacklisted or greylisted jurisdictions means keeping corporate secrecy for over three out of four of the world’s nearly 200 countries,” the Oxfam charity group said. “EU legislators have granted multinational corporations plenty of opportunities to continue dodging taxes in secrecy by shifting their profits to tax havens outside the EU, like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland,” Oxfam’s tax expert Chiara Putaturo said. She said the deal also offered companies a reporting exemption for commercially sensitive information for five years, providing a way to avoid disclosure, and noted the large turnover requirement would exclude up to 90% of multinationals. But some members of the European Parliament who negotiated the deal said it would still help make the tax system fairer. “These tax transparency measures will help to ensure that multinational companies pay their fair share and can bring some fairness to how they operate,” said Ernest Urtasun, Greens MEP of the Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee. According to the Tax Justice Network think tank, EU countries are responsible for 36% of tax lost globally to corporate tax abuse, costing countries worldwide over $154 billion every year as profits are shifted to low tax jurisdictions like Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The text of the agreement must now go through formal adoption in two European Parliament committees and the Parliament’s plenary, and in the Council of EU governments. 
 
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A Belarusian opposition activist stabbed himself in the throat with a pen during a court hearing in Minsk on Tuesday to protest what he claimed were threats from authorities to arrest his family members and friends if he did not plead guilty to organizing protests against the country’s authoritarian ruler, President Alexander Lukashenko.Footage from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty showed Stsiapan Latypau lying limp on a bench in the defendant’s cage after his self-inflicted wounding as guards tended to him.The video showed him being carried unconscious from the courthouse on a stretcher, his neck wrapped in a white cloth, and put into an ambulance.The Viasna human rights center in Belarus said Latypau was put into an induced coma. His lawyer declined to comment on his condition.Before he stabbed himself, Latypau climbed on the bench in the cage and claimed investigators had told him, “If I don’t plead guilty, they will open criminal cases against my family and neighbors.”Latypau has been held since September 2020 on various charges, including accusations that he staged actions violating the public order in last summer’s vast protests against Lukashenko. The street demonstrations occurred after the strongman claimed a sixth presidential election victory with 80% of the vote.If convicted, Latypau faces up to 10 years in prison.Latypau’s apparent attempted suicide is the latest incident with links to protests against Lukashenko. Last week, an opposition politician died in prison under unclear circumstances, while a teenager under investigation for protesting committed suicide by throwing himself from a 16-story building. “This is the result of state terror, repressions, torture in Belarus,” wrote Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition leader. “We must stop it immediately!” Many governments, except Russia, a close ally of Belarus, condemned Lukashenko last month after he diverted a Ryanair jetliner flying over Belarus and carrying Raman Pratasevich, a Belarusian activist who had fled the country in 2019 and had since lived in exile.Pratasevich and his companion, Sofia Sapega, were arrested when the flight landed in Minsk on the purported claim of a bomb aboard the aircraft, although no explosive was found.In response, European countries stopped flying over Belarus, depriving Minsk of overflight revenue, and blocked flights by Belavia, the Belarusian state air carrier, from landing in European cities.Lukashenko met with Russian President Vladimir Putin late last week to shore up support with his government’s key foreign ally. On Tuesday, Lukashenko announced Belarus would soon open direct flights with Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, although Western governments do not recognize Moscow’s claim to the territory. 
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The World Health Organization has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccine for adults 18 and older.
 
The U.N. health agency approved a vaccine Tuesday made by Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company. It was the second time the WHO approved a vaccine made by a Chinese company on an emergency basis.  
 
The WHO said data submitted by Sinovac indicated that two doses of the vaccine prevented symptoms from developing in just over half of those who received vaccinations. The agency also said it could not estimate the efficacy of the vaccine in people over 60 because few people in that age group participated in trials.
 
The WHO’s decision makes another vaccine available for use in poorer countries through COVAX, an international program that distributes vaccines to developing nations, many of them impoverished.
 
But COVAX’s distribution efforts have been slowed after its largest vaccine supplier in India said it was forced to stop supplying vaccines until the end of the year because of sharp rises in infections in the country.
 
Last month, the agency approved for emergency use a vaccine made by Sinopharm, a Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company. Other vaccines approved on an emergency basis by the WHO were manufactured by AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer-BioNTech.
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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns the United States and countries in the Caribbean and Central America to be prepared for what is expected to be another above-normal Atlantic hurricane season.The outlook for this year’s hurricane season, which began Tuesday, is grim. Last year’s record-breaking season had 30 named tropical storms, including 19 hurricanes, six of them major.The WMO says the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be less active, with between 13 and 20 named storms, of which six to 10 could become hurricanes.WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis says the coming season is likely to be particularly difficult for countries, such as those in Central America, that are still recovering from last year’s devastating storms.“Emergency managers are obviously very concerned that if another tropical storm or hurricane does impact, this will have serious consequences. It only takes one hurricane to make landfall in a season to wipe out years of social and economic development.” she said.Nullis says climate change has an influence on seasonal storms, which are increasing in intensity and frequency. She says carbon dioxide concentrations remain at record high levels and will continue to drive global warming.“All naturally occurring climate events now take place in the context of climate change, which is increasing global temperatures. As we know, it is exacerbating extreme weather and it is impacting seasonal rainfall patterns,” Nullis said.While 2021 got off to a relatively cool start, Nullis cautioned against believing that there is a pause in climate change. She noted that the WMO predicts a 90% likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record, dislodging 2016 from its top ranking. Globally averaged temperatures in 2016 were 0.99 degrees Celsius warmer than the mid-20th century mean.The Atlantic hurricane season ends November 30. 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday his government is on board with hosting the Copa America soccer tournament later this month, in a last-minute switch after planned host Argentina pulled out due to the coronavirus.
Speaking to supporters in Brasilia, Bolsonaro said he consulted with Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga and they had agreed the four-week long tournament played by 10 South American nations could take place.
“As far as it is up to me, and all the ministers, including the health minister, it is all decided,” Bolsonaro said.
Brazil was chosen as host nation on Monday in a surprise decision made jointly with the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) after Argentina withdrew as host.
The tournament is set to feature some of the greatest names in world football, with Argentines Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero, Neymar from Brazil, and Uruguayans Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani among those expected to participate. CONMEBOL has promised all players will be vaccinated before the tournament begins.
The opening match is scheduled for June 13 and the final is slated for July 10, but the host cities have not been named and organizers are scrambling to put together a plan for the 10 teams that will fly to Brazil to take part.
No fans are expected to attend the games and Bolsonaro said the same health protocols will be followed that have been in place for other soccer tournaments.
Brazil has hosted teams this year from across the continent in the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana, South America’s equivalent of the Champions League and Europa League, respectively.
“Are you watching the Libertadores? Are you watching the Copa Sudamericana? There will be a World Cup qualifier here on Friday. And no one says anything, there’s no problem,” Bolsonaro said.
“The protocols are the same.”
This year’s edition of the Copa America, the oldest international tournament in the world, was held over from 2020 because of the pandemic.
It was supposed to be the first to be held jointly by two nations but Colombia and then Argentina pulled out.
It comes as Brazil struggles to cope with the ravages of a virus that has killed 462,791 people, according to government figures.
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Pope Francis on Tuesday issued revisions to the Catholic Church’s criminal code, including punishments for priests and others who use “force, threats or abuse of his authority” to engage in sexual acts.
 
Priests who commit such offenses against minors or adults can be defrocked, while laypeople face losing their jobs or paying fines.
 
The revisions state that bishops and other superiors can be held responsible for failing to properly investigate and sanction priests.
 
A new provision also criminalizes the act of priests “grooming” or inducing a minor to engage in pornography.
 
The changes come after 14 years of study and as the Catholic Church continues to reckon with reports of decades of sexual assault and abuse by priests. 
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Violent confrontations continue between armed groups on the Colombia-Venezuela border, displacing thousands of people.  One Venezuelan nurse is crossing into Colombia to help those in need. For VOA, Jair Diaz has the story from Arauquita, Colombia, in this report narrated by Cristina Smit.
Camera: David Hernandez, Oscar Cavadia
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Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open on Monday and wrote on Twitter that she would be taking a break from competition, a dramatic turn of events for a four-time Grand Slam champion who said she experiences “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media and revealed she has “suffered long bouts of depression.”pic.twitter.com/LN2ANnoAYD— NaomiOsaka大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka) May 31, 2021Osaka’s agent, Stuart Duguid, confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that the world’s No. 2-ranked tennis player was pulling out before her second-round match at the clay-court tournament in Paris.
The stunning move came a day after Osaka, a 23-year-old who was born in Japan and moved with her family to the United States at age 3, was fined $15,000 for skipping the postmatch news conference after her first-round victory at the French Open. She also was threatened by all four Grand Slam tournaments with possible additional punishment, including disqualification or suspension, if she continued with her intention — which Osaka revealed last week on Twitter — to not “do any press during Roland Garros.”
She framed the matter as a mental health issue, saying that it can create self-doubt to have to answer questions after a loss.
“First and foremost we are sorry and sad for Naomi Osaka. The outcome of Naomi withdrawing from Roland Garros is unfortunate,” French tennis federation President Gilles Moretton said Monday. “We wish her the best and the quickest possible recovery. And we look forward to having Naomi in our tournament next year.”
Moretton said the four major tournaments, and the professional tennis tours, “remain very committed to all athletes’ well-being and to continually improving every aspect of players’ experience in our tournament, including with the media, like we always have.”
In Monday’s post, Osaka spoke about dealing with depression since the 2018 U.S. Open, which she won by beating Serena Williams in a final filled with controversy.
“I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly,” Osaka wrote, explaining that speaking with the media makes her anxious.
“I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris,” Osaka wrote. “I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer.”
She continued: “Anyone that knows me knows I’m introverted, and anyone that has seen me at the tournaments will notice that I’m often wearing headphones as that helps dull my social anxiety. … I am not a natural public speaker and get huge waves of anxiety before I speak to the world’s media.”
Williams was asked about Osaka on Monday after winning her opening match in the first scheduled night session in French Open history.
“I feel for Naomi. I feel like I wish I could give her a hug because I know what it’s like. … I’ve been in those positions,” Williams said. “We have different personalities, and people are different. Not everyone is the same. I’m thick; other people are thin. Everyone is different and everyone handles things differently. You just have to let her handle it the way she wants to, in the best way she thinks she can, and that’s the only thing I can say. I think she’s doing the best that she can.”
Osaka has never been past the third round on the French Open’s red clay. It takes seven victories to win a Grand Slam title, which she has done four times at hard-court tournaments: the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020; the Australian Open in 2019 and this February.
“Here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences,” she wrote.
Tennis players are required to attend news conferences if requested to do so.
The maximum fine of $20,000 is not a big deal to Osaka, the world’s highest-earning female athlete thanks to endorsement contracts totaling tens of millions of dollars.
“Mental health and awareness around it is one of the highest priorities to the WTA,” the women’s tennis tour said in a statement emailed by a spokeswoman.
“We have invested significant resources, staffing and educational tools in this area for the past 20-plus years and continue to develop our mental health support system for the betterment of the athletes and the organization. We remain here to support and assist Naomi in any way possible and we hope to see her back on the court soon.”
Other players, notably 13-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal and No. 1-ranked Ash Barty, have said they respect Osaka’s right to take a stance but explained that they consider speaking to reporters part of the job.
After Osaka’s post Monday, several athletes in tennis and other sports tweeted their support.
Martina Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam champion, wrote: “I am so sad about Naomi Osaka. I truly hope she will be ok. As athletes we are taught to take care of our body, and perhaps the mental & emotional aspect gets short shrift. This is about more than doing or not doing a press conference. Good luck Naomi- we are all pulling for you!”
Two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry wrote that it was “impressive taking the high road when the powers that be don’t protect their own. major respect.”
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Spain is grappling with the dilemma of whether it should allow the courts to consider a request to extradite the leading Venezuelan opposition activist to Caracas. The Venezuelan government filed a request for Spain to return Leopoldo López to complete the remaining eight years of a 14-year prison sentence for instigating violence in antigovernment protests and other crimes. The former Caracas mayor, who has been one of the most prominent leaders of the opposition to the rule of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, fled the country last year and has been living in Spain. Spain has so far refused to give any indication as to how it will respond to the request. FILE – Spain’s Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez speaks during a media briefing at San Carlos Palace in Bogota, Colombia, Feb. 26, 2021.“We will process it as it is always done but obviously I am not going to discuss what is the response that the government of Spain as this [request] just arrived,” said Spanish Foreign Minister Gonzalez Laya last week. López has received widespread international support including from former U.S. President Barack Obama for taking a stand against Maduro. Owing to the political sensitivity of the case, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will consider the request first. Opposition conservative parties in Spain will also put pressure on Spain’s leftist coalition government not to make concessions to Venezuela which is seen as a pariah state by the Right in Madrid. Pablo Casado, the leader of the conservative People’s Party, has urged the prime minister not to recognize the legitimacy of Venezuela’s High Court which issued the extradition order. “Sánchez must immediately say that he does not recognize a court of a dictatorship and that he is not going to process the extradition of an exile like Leopoldo López,” Casado tweeted.  Under pressure   Sánchez is already facing widespread criticism in Spain because he is considering pardoning nine separatist Catalan political activists in order to try to break the deadlock between Madrid and Barcelona. A poll published last week for El Español, an online Spanish newspaper, found 79.6% of Spaniards oppose pardoning separatists who were jailed for between 13 and nine years in prison for their roles in staging an illegal independence referendum in 2017. The opposition is likely to seize on any sudden concession by the prime minister to the Venezuelan government.  Experts have suggested the leftist Spanish government has been keen to keep negotiating channels open with Caracas to try to force reform in Venezuela as well as backing European Union sanctions against the Latin American state. If the Socialist prime minister believes the case should be considered by judges, it will be passed to the National Court, which decides extradition cases. However, in the past, the Spanish judiciary has refused to extradite former Venezuelan officials accused of corruption and dissidents wanted by Caracas after judges ruling that they would face political prosecutions if they were returned to their own countries. Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and his wife Lilian Tintori arrive at the National Assembly to attend the inauguration of Ecuadorean President-elect Guillermo Lasso, in Quito, on May 24, 2021.López, who is currently on a tour of Latin America to meet foreign leaders, has expressed his confidence in the Spanish justice system. “Faced with the persecution of the Maduro dictatorship, now reflected in an illegal petition for extradition, I will put myself at the disposition of the justice system, in a country with democratic institutions, separation of powers and justice and in which I have confidence,” he tweeted.   Manipulation   Analysts suggest that the extradition request is an attempt by Maduro to split the opposition in Venezuela ahead of regional elections in November. “With elections later this year, Maduro has allowed two members of the opposition into a body called the National Forum,” Ana Ayuso, a Latin American specialist at the CIDOB think-tank in Barcelona, told VOA. “At the same time, he wants to take a hard line against López and carry on splitting the opposition.” FILE – Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro speaks to supporters during a closing campaign rally for National Assembly elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec. 3, 2020.However, other experts believe Maduro wants to use the López extradition request to level criticism at the international community, principally the United States and the European Union. Carlos Malamud, a senior investigator who specializes in Latin America at the Real Elcano Institute, a research organization in Madrid, believes if the request is refused, Caracas will try to use it to claim that the international community does not respect human rights. “This [extradition request] forms part of the line from Caracas that the international community does not abide by human rights,” he told VOA in an interview. “I do not see much chance of this prospering. For Spain to grant this extradition request to Caracas would break ranks with Spain’s European allies and with the United States,” Malamud said.  
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As the world begins to travel again, Europe is sending migrants a loud message: Stay away!Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armored truck over the frontier into Turkey. Mounted on the vehicle, the long-range acoustic device, or “sound cannon,” is the size of a small TV set but can match the volume of a jet engine.It’s part of a vast array of physical and experimental new digital barriers being installed and tested during the quiet months of the coronavirus pandemic at the 200-kilometer (125-mile) Greek border with Turkey to stop people entering the European Union illegally.A new steel wall, similar to recent construction on the U.S.-Mexico border, blocks commonly used crossing points along the Evros River, which separates the two countries.Police officers patrol alongside a steel wall at Evros river, near the village of Poros, at the Greek -Turkish border, Greece, May 21, 2021.Nearby observation towers are being fitted with long-range cameras, night vision and multiple sensors. The data will be sent to control centers to flag suspicious movement using artificial intelligence analysis.”We will have a clear ‘pre-border’ picture of what’s happening,” Police Maj. Dimosthenis Kamargios, head of the region’s border guard authority, told The Associated Press.The EU has poured 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) into security tech research following the refugee crisis in 2015-16, when more than 1 million people — many escaping wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — fled to Greece and on to other EU countries.The automated surveillance network being built on the Greek-Turkish border is aimed at detecting migrants early and deterring them from crossing, with river and land patrols using searchlights and long-range acoustic devices.Key elements of the network will be launched by the end of the year, Kamargios said. “Our task is to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. We need modern equipment and tools to do that.”Testing at Greek bordersResearchers at universities around Europe, working with private firms, have developed futuristic surveillance and verification technology, and tested more than a dozen projects at Greek borders.AI-powered lie detectors and virtual border-guard interview bots have been piloted, as well as efforts to integrate satellite data with footage from drones on land, air and sea and underwater. Palm scanners record the unique vein pattern in a person’s hand to use as a biometric identifier, and the makers of live camera reconstruction technology promise to erase foliage virtually, exposing people hiding near border areas.Police officer Dimosthenis Kamargios watches an electronic surveillance tower near the village of Lagyna, at the Greek -Turkish border, Greece, May 21, 2021.Testing has also been conducted in Hungary, Latvia and elsewhere along the eastern EU perimeter.The more aggressive migration strategy has been advanced by European policymakers over the past five years, funding deals with Mediterranean countries outside the bloc to hold migrants back and transforming the EU border protection agency, Frontex, from a coordination mechanism to a full-fledged multinational security force.But regional migration deals have left the EU exposed to political pressure from neighbors.Earlier this month, several thousand migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in a single day, prompting Spain to deploy the army. A similar crisis unfolded on the Greek-Turkish border and lasted three weeks last year.Greece is pressing the EU to let Frontex patrol outside its territorial waters to stop migrants reaching Lesbos and other Greek islands, the most common route in Europe for illegal crossing in recent years.Armed with new tech tools, European law enforcement authorities are leaning further outside borders.Not all the surveillance programs being tested will be included in the new detection system, but human rights groups say the emerging technology will make it even harder for refugees fleeing wars and extreme hardship to find safety.’Everybody should care’Patrick Breyer, a European lawmaker from Germany, has taken an EU research authority to court, demanding that details of the AI-powered lie detection program be made public.”What we are seeing at the borders, and in treating foreign nationals generally, is that it’s often a testing field for technologies that are later used on Europeans as well. And that’s why everybody should care, in their own self-interest,” Breyer of the German Pirates Party told the AP.He urged authorities to allow broad oversight of border surveillance methods to review ethical concerns and prevent the sale of the technology through private partners to authoritarian regimes outside the EU.Ella Jakubowska, of the digital rights group EDRi, argued that EU officials were adopting “techno-solutionism” to sideline moral considerations in dealing with the complex issue of migration.”It is deeply troubling that, time and again, EU funds are poured into expensive technologies which are used in ways that criminalize, experiment with and dehumanize people on the move,” she said.The London-based group Privacy International argued the tougher border policing would provide a political reward to European leaders who have adopted a hard line on migration.”If people migrating are viewed only as a security problem to be deterred and challenged, the inevitable result is that governments will throw technology at controlling them,” said Edin Omanovic, an advocacy director at the group. “It’s not hard to see why: Across Europe we have autocrats looking for power by targeting foreigners, otherwise progressive leaders who have failed to come up with any alternatives to copying their agendas, and a rampant arms industry with vast access to decision-makers.”Migration flows have slowed in many parts of Europe during the pandemic, interrupting an increase recorded over years. In Greece, for example, the number of arrivals dropped from nearly 75,000 in 2019 to 15,700 in 2020, a 78% decrease.But the pressure is sure to return. Between 2000 and 2020, the world’s migrant population rose by more than 80% to reach 272 million, according to United Nations data, fast outpacing international population growth.At the Greek border village of Poros, the breakfast discussion at a cafe was about the recent crisis on the Spanish-Moroccan border.Many of the houses in the area are abandoned and in a gradual state of collapse, and life is adjusting to that reality.Cows use the steel wall as a barrier for the wind and rest nearby.Panagiotis Kyrgiannis, a Poros resident, says the wall and other preventive measures have brought migrant crossings to a dead stop.”We are used to seeing them cross over and come through the village in groups of 80 or a 100,” he said. “We were not afraid. … They don’t want to settle here. All of this that’s happening around us is not about us.” 
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday it’s not an isolated incident that over 200 children were found buried at a former Indigenous residential school.Trudeau’s comments come as Indigenous leaders are calling for an examination of every former residential school site — institutions that held children taken from families across the nation.Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in British Columbia said the remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were confirmed this month with the help of ground-penetrating radar. She described the discovery as “an unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented” at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the largest such school in the country.”As prime minister, I am appalled by the shameful policy that stole Indigenous children from their communities,” Trudeau said.”Sadly, this is not an exception or an isolated incident,” he said. ”We’re not going to hide from that. We have to acknowledge the truth. Residential schools were a reality — a tragedy that existed here, in our country, and we have to own up to it. Kids were taken from their families, returned damaged or not returned at all.”Beatings, abuseFrom the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their native languages. Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died.The Canadian government apologized in Parliament in 2008 and admitted that physical and sexual abuse in the schools was rampant. Many students recalled being beaten for speaking their native languages. They also lost touch with their parents and customs.Indigenous leaders have cited that legacy of abuse and isolation as the root cause of epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug addiction on reservations.Plans are under way to bring in forensics experts to identify and repatriate the remains of the children found buried on the Kamloops site.Trudeau said he’ll be talking to his ministers about further things his government needs to do to support survivors and the community. Flags at all federal buildings are at half-staff.Opposition New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh called Monday for an emergency debate in Parliament.”This is not a surprise. This is a reality of residential schools,” Singh said.”Two hundred fifteen Indigenous kids were found in an unmarked mass grave,” he said. ”Anytime we think about unmarked mass graves, we think about a distant country where a genocide has happened. This is not a distant country.”The Kamloops school operated between 1890 and 1969, when the federal government took over operations from the Catholic Church and operated it as a day school until it closed in 1978.Archbishop apologizesRichard Gagnon, archbishop of Winnipeg and president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he wanted to express “our deepest sorrow for the heartrending loss of the children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.”The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission has records of at least 51 children dying at the school between 1915 and 1963. The commission identified about 3,200 confirmed deaths at schools but noted the schools did not record the cause of death in almost half of them. Some died of tuberculosis. The commission said the practice was not to send the bodies of the students who died at the schools to their communities. The commission also said the government wanted to keep costs down, so adequate regulations were never established.”This discovery is a stain on our country. It is one that needs to be rectified,” opposition Conservative lawmaker Michelle Rempel Garner said.Empty pairs of children’s shoes have been placed at memorials throughout the country.Perry Bellegarde, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has said that while it is not new to find graves at former residential schools, it’s always crushing to have that chapter’s wounds exposed.The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations and the Saskatchewan government said they want Ottawa to help research undocumented deaths and burials at residential schools in the province.Federation Chief Bobby Cameron said finding the children’s remains and giving them proper burials is important to help First Nations communities and families find closure. The federation has compiled a list of initial sites where it hopes to complete radar ground searches.Sol Mamakwa, an opposition lawmaker with the New Democrat party in Ontario, also called on the government to search the grounds of other former residential schools.”It is a great open secret that our children lie on the properties of former schools. It is an open secret that Canadians can no longer look away from,” he said.
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A manhunt continued into Memorial Day for three masked suspects who opened fire early Sunday morning outside a Miami banquet hall, killing two men and wounding 21 others, in a shooting authorities said had spread terror and grief through their communities.That anguish was reinforced Monday by a grieving father who interrupted a news conference just as the Miami-Dade Police Department’s director, Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez III, was decrying the weekend’s gun violence and appealing for the community’s help in tracking down the shooters.”You killed my kid with no reason,” the distraught man yelled out as he was escorted away from cameras. Police would later confirm that the man, Clayton Dillard, is the father of one of two 26-year-old men who were gunned down outside the banquet hall that was hosting a rap concert.”That is the pain that you see. That is the pain that affects our community right there before you,” Ramirez said.On Monday, police released a snippet from surveillance video that showed a white SUV driving into an alley at the strip mall housing the El Mula Banquet Hall in northwest Miami-Dade, near Hialeah. The video shows three people getting out of the vehicle, one gripping a handgun, while the other two carried what police described as “assault-style rifles.”That’s when the gunmen sprayed bullets indiscriminately into the crowd, even though police said the assailants had specific targets in mind.Ramirez told the Miami Herald that the shooters waited between 20 and 40 minutes before attacking shortly after midnight. Police said some in the crowd returned fire.In all, 23 people were shot. In addition to the two fatalities, three others were in the hospital in critical condition. Because of privacy laws, police were not releasing the names of any of the victims.The SUV used in the shooting was later found Sunday submerged in a canal about 13 kilometers east of the banquet hall. Police said the vehicle was reported stolen two weeks ago.Sunday’s shooting came a little more than a day after a drive-by shooting claimed the life of one person outside another venue about 21 kilometers away in the Wynwood area. Six others were injured. Some witnesses likened the scene to a war zone after a barrage of dozens of bullets sent people scurrying in the night.”This is a weekend when we should be out remembering, enjoying time with loved ones, and instead, we’re here mourning,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at Monday’s press conference.”These despicable shootings in Northwest Miami-Dade and in Wynwood are shameful acts of violence that have left innocent people dead and injured,” Cava said.Police said the two shootings were unrelated.Police said Sunday’s shooting appeared to stem from rivalries between two groups but declined to refer to those groups as gangs.Businessman and TV personality Marcus Lemonis, star of “The Profit,” pledged $100,000 toward a reward fund to help authorities capture the suspects.
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Morocco and Spain traded new accusations on Monday in a diplomatic row triggered by the Western Sahara territorial issue that led this month to a migration crisis in Spain’s enclave in northern Morocco.Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described Morocco’s actions in appearing to relax border controls with the enclave of Ceuta as unacceptable and an assault on national borders.Morocco’s Foreign Ministry meanwhile blamed Spain for breaking “mutual trust and respect,” drawing parallels between the issues of Western Sahara and Spain’s Catalonia region, where there is an independence movement.The dispute was sparked by Spain admitting Western Sahara independence movement leader Brahim Ghali for medical treatment without informing Rabat.”It is not acceptable for a government to say that we will attack the borders, that we will open up the borders to let in 10,000 migrants in less than 48 hours … because of foreign policy disagreements,” Sanchez said at a news conference.Most migrants who crossed into Ceuta were immediately returned to Morocco, but hundreds of unaccompanied minors, who cannot be deported under Spanish law, remain.The influx was widely seen as retaliation for Spain’s decision to discreetly take in Ghali.Morocco regards Western Sahara as part of its own territory. The Algeria-backed Polisario seeks an independent state in the territory, where Spain was colonial ruler until 1975.Describing Spain as Morocco’s best ally in the European Union, Sanchez said he wanted to convey a constructive attitude toward Rabat but insisted that border security was paramount.”Remember that neighborliness … must be based on respect and confidence,” he said.Morocco’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Spain violated good neighborliness and mutual trust and that migration was not the problem.Rabat added that it has cooperated with Madrid in curbing migrant flows and in countering terrorism, which it said helped foil 82 militant attacks in Spain.The case of Ghali “revealed the hostile attitudes and harmful strategies of Spain regarding the Moroccan Sahara,” the ministry said in a statement.Spain “cannot combat separatism at home and promote it in its neighbor,” it said, noting Rabat’s support for Madrid against the Catalan independence movement.Separately, Ghali, who has been hospitalized with COVID-19 in Logrono in the Rioja region, will attend a Tuesday high court hearing remotely from the hospital, his lawyer’s office said.Morocco, which has withdrawn its ambassador to Madrid, has said it may sever ties with Spain if Ghali left the country the same way he entered without a trial. 
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Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny asked a court Monday to halt the hourly nighttime checks he has been subjected to in his penal colony.  Speaking to the court in a video link from prison, Navalny charged that he has done nothing that would warrant the authorities’ decision to designate him as a flight risk, which has resulted in the checks.  “I just want them to stop coming to me and waking me up at nighttime,” he told the judge in remarks that were broadcast by the independent Dozhd TV. “What did I do: Did I climb the fence? Did I dig up an underpass? Or was I wringing a pistol from someone? Just explain why they named me a flight risk!”He argued that the hourly nighttime checks “effectively amount to torture,” telling the judge that “you would go mad in a week” if subjected to such regular wake-ups.The court later adjourned the hearing until Wednesday.Navalny, the most determined political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin — accusations that Russian officials reject.In February, he was handed a 2 1/2-year sentence for violating terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction, which he says was politically motivated.He went on a 24-day hunger strike in prison to protest the lack of medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs, ending it last month after getting the medical attention he demanded.While he still was on hunger strike, Navalny was moved from a penal colony east of Moscow, where he was serving his sentence, to the hospital ward of another prison in Vladimir, a city 180 kilometers (110 miles) east of the capital. He remains at that prison, where he said the nighttime checks continued, although they were less intrusive.With Navalny in prison, prosecutors have asked a Moscow court to designate his Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his network of regional offices as extremist groups. A bill, which has sailed quickly through the Kremlin-controlled lower house of Russian parliament, bars members, donors and supporters of extremist groups from seeking public office.The parallel moves have been widely seen as an attempt to keep any of Navalny’s associates from running in September’s parliamentary election. 
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After outlining a fresh chapter in French-African relations, with calls for massive economic support for Africa and visits to Rwanda and South Africa last week, President Emmanuel Macron is back home to confront familiar and thorny problems in France’s former colonies, underscoring the challenges of breaking with the past.At front and center is Mali, buffeted by its fifth coup since independence from Paris in 1960 — and the second in less than a year. To the east, Chad is also unsettled by a controversial political transition, following the April death of longstanding leader Idriss Deby. Both countries are key allies in France’s counter-terrorism operation in the Sahel.Russians and Malian flags are waved by protesters in Bamako, Mali, during a demonstration against French influence in the country on May 27, 2021.Farther south, Paris fears Russia’s growing influence in the Central African Republic — among that of other newer foreign powers — including Moscow’s alleged role in fueling anti-French sentiments.Taken together, some analysts say, these developments, combined with France’s legacy in Africa — and, in some cases, Macron’s own actions — may make it harder to deliver on his promises of change.“Emmanuel Macron is trapped in a contradictory position,” Africa specialist Antoine Glaser told French television station TV5 Monde.“He wants to get out of FrancAfrique by turning to anglophone countries like Rwanda and South Africa,” he said, referring to the tangle web of business and political interests with France’s former colonies, “but he’s bogged down in the francophone countries.”Moving forward, looking backMacron states otherwise, as he looks for new ways and new places to exert French influence on the continent. At a May summit in Paris, he called on richer countries to invest massively in Africa’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and echoed Washington’s call for a patent waiver on COVID-19 vaccines — calls he reiterated during his visit to South Africa on Friday. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the virus.The French leader also organized a special donors’ conference on Sudan — another country outside Paris’ traditional sphere of influence — and announced plans to cancel Khartoum’s $5 billion bilateral debt.Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, left, Chad President Idriss Deby, center, and France President Emmanuel Macron arrive for a picture during the G5 Sahel summit on June 30, 2020, in Nouakchott, Mauritania.The calls fit into Macron’s broader reset of relations with the continent since taking office in 2017. Visiting Burkina Faso later that year, he promised to return plundered artifacts to former colonies, a pledge several other European governments have since echoed.“For sure, colonialization has left a strong imprint,” Macron told the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, in a lengthy interview published Sunday. “But I also told young people in Ouagadougou (in 2017) that today’s problems aren’t linked to colonialism, they’re more caused by bad governance by some, and corruption by others. These are African subjects, and relations with France should not exonerate leaders from their own responsibilities.” Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso.Yet Macron has also gone further than his predecessors in acknowledging France’s blame for past injustices. He set up fact-finding commissions to examine Paris’ role in Algeria’s war of independence and in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. While both reports were critical, Macron ruled out official apologies.Still, he has followed some of the reconciliatory actions recommended by the Algeria commission. And in Kigali on Thursday, he turned the problem around, asking Rwandans instead to forgive France for its role in the mass killings, while saying France had not been an accomplice in them.”His words were something more valuable than an apology. They were the truth,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame said of Macron’s speech, calling it “an act of tremendous courage.”French President Emmanuel Macron, center, and his wife Brigitte Macron, left, welcome Chadian Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke, right, for a dinner with leaders of African states, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, May 17, 2021.Continuation or break?Yet in Rwanda and elsewhere, Macron’s actions have also drawn controversy—reflecting, some analysts say, a continuation rather than a break with the past. Some question Macron’s visit to Kigali, for example, noting its increasingly authoritarian leader.In Chad, where Macron was the only Western leader to attend Deby’s funeral, Paris appeared to initially endorse the military council that took over after Deby’s death, and which is headed by his son. While the body has promised eventual elections, some opposition activists claim its existence amounts to an effective coup d’etat.Days later, Macron appeared to backtrack, saying France supported a democratic and inclusive transition and not a “succession plan.”“For too long, France’s view remained short-sighted and purely military: Chad was no more than a provider of troops for regional wars,” Chad expert Jerome Tubiana wrote in Foreign Policy magazine.Deby’s death, he added, was a potential game changer Paris should seize.“If France renews with a new junta the same deal it had with Deby — fighters in exchange for political, financial, and military backing — it will miss that long-awaited turning point when democratic change in Chad could actually become a reality,” he added.In Mali, by contrast, France and the European Union have denounced the country’s latest coup as “unacceptable.” Macron warned West African leaders they could not support a country without “democratic legitimacy or transition,” he told Le Journal du Dimanche, threatening to pull French troops from the country if it tipped to “radical Islamism.”The president has long floated an eventual drawdown of France’s 5,100-strong counter-insurgency operation in the Sahel, hoping also to beef up other European forces in the region, to help shoulder the fight.But analyst Glaser believes Mali’s latest military takeover could make it harder, not easier, to fulfill that goal.“This situation puts him in a delicate position,” Glaser said of Macron. “He wants to get out of FrancAfrique and keeps saying … that the solution in Africa is political, not military. So, when Mali faces major problems politically, his whole strategy is undermined.” 
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Next month’s Copa America soccer tournament will take place in Brazil, the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) said on Monday, as it thanked President Jair Bolsonaro for stepping in after original host Argentina pulled out after a surge of COVID-19 cases.
 
The surprise decision, which relocates the competition from one South American coronavirus hot spot to another, means the oldest international tournament in the world will kick off as planned on June 13, with the final on July 10.
 
“The Brazilian government has shown agility and decisive thinking at a crucial moment for South American football,” CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez said in a statement.
 
“Brazil is in a time of stability, it has proven infrastructure and recent experience in hosting a tournament of this magnitude.”
 
Brazil hosted the Copa America in 2019 and the World Cup in 2014.
 
The decision is a boost for Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who has railed against lockdowns and urged Brazilians to return to normal life.
 
In a separate tweet, CONMEBOL thanked Bolsonaro for “opening the country’s doors to what is now the safest sporting event in the world.”
 
The president’s office directed questions to the sport department at the Ministry of Citizenship, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
 460,000 Dead
 
More than 460,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Brazil, the second highest number in the world after the United States, and the vaccination roll-out has stuttered. But Argentina is struggling with a recent spike. According to a Reuters tally, Brazil has reported 204 infections per 100,000 people in the last seven days, compared to 484 per 100,000 in Argentina.
 
Large protests took place across Brazil on Saturday against Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.
 
Huge social demos also shook Brazil during the 2013 Confederations Cup but vice president Hamilton Mourao told reporters in Brasilia he did not expect more demonstrations during the Copa America and said he thought Brazil was a “less risky” choice than Argentina. With no fans expected to attend, the risk was diminished, he said.
 
But many others in Brazil, where soccer is a national obsession, were outraged by the decision.
 
“The authorities act as if Brazil had advanced vaccination as in the United States. It will be difficult to cheer for the national team,” prominent journalist Guga Chacra wrote in a tweet.
 
The CONMEBOL announcement comes less than 24 hours after Argentina said its outbreak meant it could no longer host.
 
This year’s Copa America was to be the first featuring joint hosts, but Colombia was removed as co-host on May 20 after a wave of protests demanding social and economic change spread across the country.
 
CONMEBOL hoped Argentina could then host all 28 games or share them with South American neighbors.
 
Organizers had been reluctant to cancel the lucrative tournament. The last Copa America, held in Brazil in 2019, brought in $118 million in revenue.
 
Although no decision has yet been made on venues, many of the stadiums Brazil built or reformed for the 2014 World Cup could be candidates to host matches, with the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro or the Mane Garrincha stadium in the capital Brasilia possible locations.
 
One source told Reuters that venues in Brasilia, Natal, Manaus and Cuiaba will be used. CONMEBOL said it would reveal the host cities “in the coming hours.”
 
The last-minute decision also throws up some complicated questions for the Brazilian national federation (CBF). The Brazilian league was not due to be halted for the Copa America and at least 70 league games are scheduled to be played during the month-long tournament.
 
News reports in Brazil said Flamengo will ask the CBF to suspend the league for the duration of the Copa.
 
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Turkish agents have captured a nephew of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen in an overseas operation and have brought him to Turkey where he faces prosecution, Turkey’s state-run news agency said Monday.Selahaddin Gulen, who was wanted in Turkey on charges of membership in a terror organization, was seized in an operation by Turkey’s national spy agency MIT, the Anadolu agency reported.  The report did not say where he was seized or when he was returned to Turkey. Gulen’s nephew, however, was believed to be residing in Kenya.His case is the latest in a series of forced repatriation of people affiliated with Gulen’s movement, which the Turkish government blames for a failed coup attempt in 2016.  Gulen, a former ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who now lives in exile in Pennsylvania, has rejected the accusations of involvement in the coup attempt.Turkey has designated his network a terrorist group, which it has named the Fethullahist Terror Organization, or FETO.Erdogan announced earlier in May that a prominent member of Gulen’s network had been captured but did not provide details.On July 15, 2016, factions within the Turkish military used tanks, warplanes and helicopters in an attempt to overthrow Erdogan. Fighter jets bombed parliament and other spots in Turkey’s capital. Heeding a call by the president, thousands took to the streets to stop the coup.A total of 251 people were killed and around 2,200 others were wounded. Around 35 alleged coup plotters were also killed. 
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The Turkish government is facing accusations of arming and funding jihadists in Syria. The allegations are just the latest by an exiled mafia boss in a weekly YouTube broadcast that are putting the Turkish president in an increasingly tight spot.  
 
Among the many allegations being spread by Sedat Peker on YouTube is one that allegedly implicates the Turkish government of arming and buying oil from Syrian jihadists. In one of his broadcasts Peker explains in detail how key aides of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ran the scheme.  
 
Peker, who analysts say once enjoyed close ties to Turkey’s rulers, started broadcasting weekly Sunday videos on a YouTube channel, alleging government misdeeds after he was forced to flee the country.  
 
Analyst Atilla Yesilada says the mafia boss has a growing audience.  
 
“It is huge. He is easily attracting audiences in excess of four and five million per video. And everything he says is scrutinized in the opposition channels. So, I would say everyone knows about what he is saying. Obviously, the most damaging is him opening the 1990s file, the extrajudicial killings,” Yesilada said.
Peker alleges former interior minister Mehmet Aga was the head of a shadowy organization known as the “deep state,” which is said to have been responsible for a series of assassinations of prominent journalists dating back to the 1990s. Aga is closely linked to Erdogan, and his son Tolga is a parliamentary deputy for the ruling AKP, Turkey’s ruling party.  FILE – A photo taken May 26, 2021, in Istanbul, Turkey, shows a YouTube broadcast by exiled mob boss Sedat Peker on a mobile phone.Aga has denied the allegations. Erol Onderoglu of Reporters Without Borders says there is a need for government transparency.
 
“This should be part of a parliamentary investigation first, but I think that it will never be possible without the Turkish government naming some state actors in this period. So, transparency today should calm public opinion today and show respect to victims’ families,” Onderoglu said.
 
But Erdogan is dismissing the allegations.
 
Speaking to his party’s deputies, the Turkish president claimed the accusations are part of an international conspiracy to oust him.  
 
But Peker’s allegations continue, accusing the son of Erdogan’s close confidant, former prime minister Binali Yildirim, of cocaine smuggling, and turning Turkey into one of the biggest hubs for importing and distributing drugs into Europe. Yildirim dismissed the allegations.  
 
Analysts point out Erdogan is experienced at weathering political storms. But analyst Yesilada says, unlike in the past, Turkey is in the midst of an economic crisis and record-low opinion poll ratings for Erdogan.
 
“These are all unmistakable signs of Armageddon for Erdogan approaching. It will really take a miracle to repair the reputational damage that is caused by the Peker videos. The picture that emerges is that this is a government set for personal benefit and for the benefit of cronies and [one that] has completely lost interest in the voters,” Yesilada said.
 
Peker is promising more YouTube videos that he says will share more intimate secrets he claims he learned from spending two decades in the inner circles of the ruling party.
 
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Severe acute childhood malnutrition is expected to more than double this year in Haiti as the country struggles with the coronavirus pandemic, a spike in violence and dwindling resources, a UNICEF report said Monday.
More than 86,000 children under age 5 could be affected, compared with 41,000 reported last year, said Jean Gough, UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
“I was saddened to see so many children suffering from malnutrition,” she said after a weeklong visit to Haiti. “Some will not recover unless they receive treatment on time.”
Severe acute malnutrition is considered a life-threatening condition.  
In a slightly less dangerous category, acute malnutrition in kids younger than 5 in Haiti has risen 61%, with some 217,000 children expected to suffer from it this year, compared with 134,000 last year.  
Overall, UNICEF said, about 4.4 million of Haiti’s more than 11 million inhabitants lack sufficient food, including 1.9 million children.
Gough told The Associated Press during a recent visit to a hospital in the southern city of Les Cayes that UNICEF has only a one-month supply left of a special food paste given to children in need and is seeking $3 million by the end of June.  
Officials said the pandemic also has disrupted health services, with childhood immunization rates dropping from 28% to 44%, depending on the vaccine. The decrease has led to a rise in diphtheria cases as health workers brace for an expected measles outbreak this year.
UNICEF noted that unvaccinated children also are more likely to die from malnutrition.
Lamir Samedi, a nurse who works at a community health center in the southern town of Saint-Jean-du-Sud, said the target was to vaccinate 80% of children in the area, but they had yet to reach 50%.
Among the children hospitalized is 11-month-old Denise Joseph, who lay quietly in a crib in Les Cayes after being diagnosed with tuberculosis two weeks ago.
 
“She never eats,” said her grandmother, Marie-Rose Emile, who is caring for the infant since her mother also is ill. Emile is struggling to provide for the baby, saying she has barely harvested any beans, corn or potatoes this year.
Gough, the UNICEF official, said she was discouraged by the dismal numbers of malnutrition and drop in childhood immunizations. She said more outreach services are needed because not enough people are visiting community health centers.
Among those visiting a health center for the first time was 27-year-old Franceline Mileon, who brought her young child after hearing a health official with a bullhorn in her neighborhood announcing that a vaccination program had begun. She sat on a bench, coddling her baby, as she waited for a nurse to weigh her.
Overall, UNICEF said it needs nearly $49 million this year to meet humanitarian needs in Haiti, adding that little of that amount has been pledged. The agency $5.2 million of that amount would go toward nutrition and $4.9 million for health, including childhood immunizations.
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Colombia’s government resumed negotiations with demonstrators to end more than a month of protests Sunday, as the UN called for an independent investigation after at least 13 people died in clashes in the city of Cali. President Ivan Duque’s team and some of the demonstration representatives resumed talks in Bogota after nearly a week’s pause.   But a resolution seemed far off, as the protesters denounced the Duque administration’s “complicit silence” in the face of “excessive” use of force by law enforcement.   The government responded that an agreement could be reached once the blockades choking up the country’s transport infrastructure are lifted.   In just over a month of unrest, 59 people have died across Colombia according to official data, with more than 2,300 civilians and uniformed personnel injured.    The NGO Human Rights Watch says it has “credible reports” of at least 63 deaths nationwide. The crackdown by the armed forces on the anti-government protests has drawn international condemnation, and on Sunday UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet voiced “deep concern” over the ongoing violence. Cali deathsClashes in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city and one of the major centers of the protests, pitted police against armed civilians late Friday, leaving 13 dead, according to officials. Calling for an investigation, Bachelet’s office said it had received reports that 14 people had been killed, and that 98 people were injured, 54 of them by firearms.   It added it had been told that armed individuals, including an off-duty judicial police officer, had opened fire on demonstrators, journalists covering the protests, and passers-by.A man (L) against the national strike faces a man who supports it, during a demonstration in opposition to road blockades and violence, after a month of national protests, in Bogota, on May 30, 2021.The policeman was subsequently beaten to death by a crowd, it said, and in parts of Cali civilians were seen firing shots at demonstrators as police looked on. A witness to the troubles in the neighborhood of Melendez on Friday told AFP a group was marking the one-month anniversary of the protests when “shots rang out.” “They started massacring people,” said the 22-year-old, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, and claimed the shots came from five people in civilian clothes “hiding behind the trees.”   “It is essential that all those who are reportedly involved in causing injury or death, including state officials, are subject to prompt, effective, independent, impartial and transparent investigations,” Bachelet said in a statement, calling for those responsible to be held accountable.  The police said in a statement it would investigate claims that its members were “permissive with the actions of armed civilians.” In Colombia, the police fall under the command of the military. Bachelet’s office also said it had received information of at least 30 people arrested in Cali since Friday, and highlighted concerns about the whereabouts of some of them. “The fair trial and due process rights of those detained need to be ensured,” the commissioner said. ‘Dousing fire with gasoline’ On Saturday, Duque was booed by a crowd as he appeared in public in Cali.  The president, who was there Friday to Sunday and chaired a security meeting, had ordered more than 1,100 soldiers to be deployed to the western city.  Some in Cali’s poorer neighborhoods told AFP the military deployment to their city made them more fearful, not less. “If something happens, we cannot call the police because they are the ones who are killing,” said Lina Gallegas, a 31-year-old community activist.    Luis Felipe Vega, a political scientist at Javeriana University, likened the deployment to “putting out a fire with gasoline.”   Cali security secretary Carlos Rojas described scenes in the south of the city as “almost an urban war.” In Cali, as across the country, poverty, joblessness, inequality and the fallout from the coronavirus epidemic have sparked widespread anger and resentment.   The protests, which began on April 28, were initially against a proposed tax increase Colombians said would leave them poorer even as they struggled with pandemic-related losses of income.   The proposal was quickly withdrawn, but the protests morphed into a wider denunciation of the government and the armed forces.   Blockades burning Barricades have been kept burning countrywide and blocked dozens of key roads, causing shortages of many products. According to authorities, some 87 blockades have been set up throughout the country, mainly in the vicinity of Cali.  Duque has deployed 7,000 troops across the country to help clear and patrol the blockaded roads.   Over the weekend white-clad demonstrators took to the streets of Bogota, Medellin and other cities to demand an end to the protests and blockades.   “Today we go out peacefully to demand an end to the strike… all the road closures and blockades are affecting the national economy and are generating more poverty,” Bernardo Henao, a 63-year-old lawyer and cattle rancher, told AFP at one of the gatherings.   Colombia is also struggling to contain the coronavirus situation in the country.   On Saturday it reported a record daily coronavirus death toll of 540. 
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Helio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday for a record-equaling fourth time, in front of the largest crowd to attend a sporting event in the United States since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.The 46-year-old Brazilian surged to the front with two laps to go and held off a challenge from hard-charging Spanish young gun Alex Palou to claim victory and join AJ Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser as the only four-time winners of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”It was the 21st Indy 500 start for Castroneves but his first with Meyer Shank Racing, his other wins in 2001, 2002 and 2009 all coming with Team Penske.With the race back in its traditional U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend slot, after last year’s event was moved to August and held at an empty track because of the pandemic, a sold-out crowd of 135,000 excited fans flocked to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.While the crowd was well shy of the nearly 400,000 that the speedway can accommodate, the roars returned to the Brickyard as fans partied in the sunshine.
 
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