Demanding the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, young men with machetes, guns and rocks set alight tires and debris in the street and threatened to behead foreigners after UN troops and police arrested dozens in a sweep through a volatile slum.
Peacekeepers in armored personnel carriers moved into the Bel Air slum Wednesday while gunfire crackled and two helicopters roared overhead, trying to put down a campaign by Aristide loyalists who have carried out gory beheadings in imitation of Iraqi insurgents. The headless body of a man lay in the street in La Salines, another slum, on Wednesday morning. Three police officers also were decapitated last week when Aristide supporters stepped up protests demanding his return from exile in South Africa and launched "Operation Baghdad."
PHOTO: AP
At least 19 people have been killed in a week of violence in Port-au-Prince, which relief workers said could paralyze attempts to feed tens of thousands of hungry survivors in the northwest port city of Gonaives, which was devastated by floods from Tropical Storm Jeanne last month. At least 50 people have been treated for gunshot wounds since last Friday at Port-au-Prince General Hospital, records show. Officials said the hospital usually treats one or two wounded people a day.
One angry man in Bel Air on Wednesday thrust a gun into the face of an Associated Press reporter, yelled expletives against US President George W. Bush and UN peacekeepers, then screamed "We are going to kidnap some Americans and cut off their heads."
Protesters also have been demanding an end to "the invasion" -- referring to US Marines who flew in the day Aristide left in February and UN peacekeepers who replaced them in June. Aristide loyalists blocked streets throughout Bel Air on Wednesday with torched cars and other debris, just blocks from the National Palace.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS