Rebels threatened to take over Haiti's second-largest city unless President Jean Bertrand Aristide resigned, as the embattled leader turned down a partial solution to a bloody uprising French aid groups said could soon turn into a humanitarian disaster.
"We are not indifferent to the massacres committed by Aristide's people, and if he does not resign we will liberate Cap-Haitien, then the West," rebel leader Guy Philippe said Wednesday in the rebel-held northern city of Gonaive.
"The international community must tell him to resign quickly, or else we will take the palace," Philippe said in a reference to the National Palace and presidential seat in Port-au-Prince, which is in Haiti's western department.
Philippe, a former police chief, spoke after armed anti-government rebels renamed their movement the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti and made him their commander.
The UN Security Council and South American leaders called for a peaceful solution to the escalating crisis in Haiti, where more than 55 people have been killed in the past two weeks in an armed uprising against the government.
Aristide, meanwhile, refused to name a new prime minister who would enjoy the support of the opposition, as part of a compromise solution for defusing the crisis put together by the 15-nation Caribbean Community (Caricom).
"If you are talking about the opposition that is publicly supporting terrorists, don't think I will have the irresponsibility of handing them over such a post," Aristide said Wednesday in an interview with Radio Canada.
Caricom, which is opposed to a forced removal of the Haitian president, has also called for freeing political prisoners and disbanding armed militias.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS