Christopher Columbus is getting kicked off Mexico City’s most iconic boulevard. Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the Columbus statue on the Paseo de la Reforma, often a focal point for Indigenous rights protests, would be replaced by a statue honoring Indigenous women. “To them we owe … the history of our country, of our fatherland,” she said. She made the announcement on Sunday, which was International Day of the Indigenous Woman. The Columbus statue, donated to the city many years ago, was a significant reference point on the 10-lane boulevard, and the surrounding traffic circle is — so far — named for it. That made it a favorite target of spray-paint-wielding protesters denouncing the European suppression of Mexico’s Indigenous civilizations. FILE – Workers clean the statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, surrounded by metal fencing during Columbus Day, in Mexico City, Mexico, October 12, 2020.It was removed last year supposedly for restoration, shortly before October 12, which Americans know as Columbus Day but Mexicans call “Dia de la Raza,” or “Day of the Race” — the anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. When the statue was removed last year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador noted that “it is a date that is very controversial and lends itself to conflicting ideas and political conflicts.” This year is the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan — what is now Mexico City — as well as the 500th anniversary of its fall to the Spanish conquistadores, and the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s final independence from Spain. Most Mexicans have some indigenous ancestry and are well aware that millions of Indigenous people died from violence and disease during and after the conquest. Sheinbaum said the new statue, “Tlali,” might be ready near the date of Dia de la Raza this year. The Columbus statue isn’t being discarded, but will be moved to a less prominent location in a small park in the Polanco neighborhood. Sheinbaum referred to Columbus “a great international personage.” 
 
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Mexican border agents and police broke up a caravan of hundreds of migrants Sunday who had set out from southernmost Mexico — the fourth such caravan officials have raided in recent days.The group of about 800 — largely Central Americans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans — had spent then night at a basketball court near Huixtla, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) up the road from the border city of Tapachula where they had been kept awaiting processing by Mexican immigration officials.But shortly before dawn, immigration agents backed by police with anti-riot gear went into the crowd, pushing many into trucks.Hundreds of the migrants escaped running toward a river and hid in the vegetation.“They began to hit me all over,” a woman said amid tears, alleging that police also beat her hustband and pulled one of her daughters from her arms.“Until they give me my daughter, I’m not leaving,” she told an Associated Press camera crew. But immigration agents surrounded the woman, her husband nd other child and detained them.The group was at least the fourth to be broken up over the past week after heading out north in a caravan, frustrated by the slow pace of immigration processing and poor conditions in Tapachula, where they are unable to work legally.The government has insisted that excessive force against a Haitian migrant caught on camera the past weekend was an aberration and two immigration agents were suspended.Mexico has faced immigration pressures from the north, south and within its own borders in recent weeks as thousands of migrants have crossed its southern border, the United States has sent thousands more back from the north and a U.S. court has ordered the Biden administration to renew a policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico for long periods of time.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday the strategy of containing migrants in the south was untenable on its own and more investment is needed in the region to keep Central Americans from leaving their homes.Thousands of mostly Haitian migrants stuck in Tapachula have increasingly protested in recent weeks. Many have been waiting there for months, some up to a year, for asylum requests to be processed.Mexico’s refugee agency has been overwhelmed. So far this year, more than 77,000 people have applied for protected status in Mexico, 55,000 of those in Tapachula, where shelters are full.Unable to work legally and frustrated by the delay and poor conditions, hundreds have set out north.
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Hundreds of supporters of two Canadian men being held on what Ottawa says are specious charges marched 7,000 steps through the Canadian capital on Sunday to mark the pair’s 1,000th day of “unjust” detention in China. Similar events in support of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were held elsewhere in Canada and across the world in cities including Brussels, New York, Washington, Seoul and Singapore. “These are unjust detentions,” Kovrig’s wife Vina Nadjibulla told AFP. “These marches are about solidarity with our Michaels, they’re about honoring their strength and resilience and also calling for action to finally break the stalemate, to bring them home and do everything possible to end this injustice,” Nadjibulla said at the start of the rally. The two men were arrested in December 2018 and accused of espionage in what Ottawa has said was retaliation for its detention on a US warrant of a prominent Chinese national, Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. A decision is expected in coming months on whether to send Meng to the United States to face fraud charges related to alleged violations of Iran sanctions by the Chinese tech giant.   Spavor, a businessman, and former diplomat Kovrig went on trial in March. Spavor was handed an 11-year jail sentence just as final arguments in Meng’s extradition trial got underway last month. No decision has been announced in Kovrig’s case.   The seemingly tit-for-tat arrests plunged Ottawa-Beijing relations into a deep freeze, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling the charges against the Michaels “trumped up.”   On Sunday US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned what he called “arbitrary detentions” by China. “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Canada and the international community in calling for the PRC to release, immediately and unconditionally, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig,” Blinken said in a statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. ‘A difficult milestone’ The Ottawa rally was attended by Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau and several opposition MPs, as well as the US ambassador to Ottawa. “This is a difficult milestone,” Nadjibulla, holding back tears, told the crowd. “It’s been 1,000 days — the heartbreak, the pain, the injustice is real. The heaviness, I feel it, we all feel it.”   She said her husband had described his ordeal in letters from prison, adding, “One of the things that he does in his windowless, small cell every day is to pace 7,000 steps.” “He walks in circles, 7,000 steps, often holding a book, reading, reciting songs, prayers — five kilometers of courage and contemplation. And today, he will not be alone in that walk. We will accompany him, all of us,” she said. “He knows that this event is happening,” she added. “He knows that we’re with him. That gives him strength.”   Michael Spavor’s brother Paul told reporters his brother “spends a lot of his time reading, meditating, doing yoga.” “One thousand days is a long time,” he said. “Today is just another day, but it’s another day that goes by without our Michaels being back with us.”   
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Brazil’s World Cup qualifying match against Argentina was dramatically suspended shortly after it began Sunday as controversy over COVID-19 protocols erupted.The match at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena between the two giants of South American football came to a halt when a group of Brazilian public health officials came onto the pitch, triggering a melee involving team staff and players.Argentina’s players trudged off the pitch to the locker room as the furor raged. Argentina captain Lionel Messi later re-emerged from the tunnel without his team shirt on as confusion swept around the stadium.The stunning intervention came just hours after Brazil’s health authorities said four players in Argentina’s squad based in England should be placed in “immediate quarantine” for breaching COVID-19 protocols.According to Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), Premier League players Giovani Lo Celso (Tottenham), Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa), Emiliano Buendia (Aston Villa) and Cristian Romero (Tottenham) provided “false information” upon their entry to Brazil.Romero, Lo Celso and Martinez were all in the Argentina starting lineup that kicked off Sunday’s game, triggering the intervention onto the field of officials wearing ANVISA shirts.The four Premier League players were accused of failing to disclose that they had spent time in the United Kingdom in the 14 days prior to their arrival.”We got to this point because everything that ANVISA directed, from the first moment, was not fulfilled,” ANVISA director Antonio Barra Torres said on Brazilian television.”(The four players) were directed to remain isolated while awaiting deportation, but they did not comply. They went to the stadium and they entered the field, in a series of breaches,” the official added.A government order dating from June 23 prohibits the entry into Brazilian territory of any foreign person from the United Kingdom, India or South Africa, to prevent the spread of variants of the coronavirus.”ANVISA considers that this situation represents a serious health risk and recommends that the local health authorities (of Sao Paulo) order the immediate quarantine of the players, who are prohibited from taking part in any activity and from remaining on Brazilian territory,” the agency said in a statement earlier Sunday.ANVISA said Brazil’s Federal Police had been notified so that “the necessary measures are taken immediately.”Brazilian website Globoesporte said the Argentina Football Association (AFA) could request an exceptional authorization from authorities in Sao Paulo to allow the players to take the field against Brazil.The controversy comes after nine Brazilians based in the Premier League failed to travel to South America following objections from their clubs.
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Indigenous groups urged world leaders on Sunday to back a new target to protect 80% of the Amazon basin by 2025, saying bold action was needed to stop deforestation pushing the Earth’s largest rainforest beyond a point of no return.Amazonian delegates launched their campaign at a nine-day conference in Marseille, where several thousand officials, scientists and campaigners are laying the groundwork for United Nations talks on biodiversity in the Chinese city of Kunming next year.”We invite the global community to join us to reverse the destruction of our home and by doing so safeguard the future of the planet,” José Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, lead coordinator for COICA, which represents Indigenous groups in nine Amazon-basin nations, told Reuters.Just under 50% of the Amazon basin is currently under some form of official protection or indigenous stewardship, according to research published last year.But pressure from ranching, mining and oil exploration is growing. In Brazil, home to 60% of the biome, deforestation has surged since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, reaching a 12-year high last year and drawing an international outcry.The Amazon basin as a whole has lost 18% of its original forest cover while another 17% has been degraded, according to a landmark study released in July by the Science Panel for the Amazon, based on research by 200 scientists.If deforestation reaches 20%-25%, it could tip the Amazon into a death spiral in which it dries out and becomes savanna, according to Brazilian earth system scientist Carlos Nobre.The Marseille gathering is the latest “World Conservation Congress,” an event held every four years by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a forum convening governments, civil society and researchers.COICA wants the congress to endorse its “Amazonia80x2025” declaration to give the proposal a greater chance of gaining traction in Kunming, where governments are due to discuss targets to protect biodiversity over the next decade. 
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A top Venezuelan official signaled on Saturday that talks between the government and the opposition aimed at resolving the country’s long-standing political crisis have yielded “partial agreements.”The opposition is hoping to use the talks being held in Mexico City to secure guarantees of free and fair regional elections to be held in the fall, while the government of Nicolas Maduro wants to ease international sanctions on his economically crippled nation.”We have been working mainly on partial agreements, especially those related to serving the people of Venezuela,” parliament speaker Jorge Rodriguez, who was leading the government delegation, told reporters.But officials provided no information on the nature of the agreements and a source in the opposition delegation told AFP that “so far nothing has been agreed.”The talks, mediated by Norway and hosted by Mexico, aim to resolve the crisis that has marked Maduro’s eight-year rule.The negotiations have a seven-point agenda including easing sanctions, political rights and electoral guarantees — but not the departure of Maduro, accused by the opposition of fraudulent reelection in 2018.The government is “very attentive” to all the economic guarantees that have been “wrested, blocked, stolen, withdrawn from the people of Venezuela,” said Rodriguez, adding that Maduro seeks a partial if not total lifting of sanctions in exchange for concessions to the opposition.The main opposition alliance headed by Juan Guaido reversed course this week when it announced that it would end a three-year election boycott and take part in mayoral and gubernatorial polls in November.Speaking before the start of the negotiations, the head of the opposition delegation Gerardo Blyde expressed hope that the talks “will seek to alleviate the crisis, but the crisis comes from very serious basic problems, from a model which failed in Venezuela and which does not recognize the democratic order and the constitutional order.”He added that it’s “a process which is beginning, which is hard, complex.”Neither Maduro nor Guaido, who is considered president by about 60 countries, was due to personally attend the closed-door talks, which were scheduled to run until Monday.”We are in Mexico looking for a national salvation agreement to respond to the emergency, obtain the conditions for free and fair elections and the rescue of our democracy,” Guaido tweeted.Previous rounds of similar negotiations held in recent years have failed to resolve the crisis. 
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El Salvador’s top court has ruled that the country’s president can serve two consecutive terms, opening the door for Nayib Bukele to stand for reelection in 2024 and sparking condemnation from the U.S. government.The ruling was handed down late on Friday by judges appointed by lawmakers from Bukele’s ruling party in May after they had removed the previous justices, a step that drew strong criticism from the United States and other foreign powers.The U.S. Embassy in El Salvador on Saturday slammed the judges’ ruling as unconstitutional and a blow to bilateral ties.The constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to enable a president who had not been in office “in the immediately preceding period to participate in the electoral contest for a second occasion.”The electoral tribunal said in a brief statement on Saturday that it would follow the court’s instructions.In recent years, the relaxing of presidential terms limits in parts of Latin America has stirred concerns among Western officials about a gradual erosion of democracy.American officials are also concerned about what they see as signs of authoritarianism under Bukele, who last year sent troops into Congress to pressure lawmakers into approving legislation, and who has withdrawn from U.S.-backed anti-corruption accords.Bukele has pushed back against accusations of authoritarianism, arguing he is cleaning up the country.His government has readied constitutional changes that aim to extend the presidential term to six years from five, and include the possibility of revoking the president’s mandate, among other steps.That has yet to go to the Central American country’s Congress, which Bukele’s party and its allies control.Bukele, a popular but divisive 40-year-old president, has not commented on the court’s ruling.In 2014, the court ruled that presidents would have to wait 10 years after leaving office to be reelected.Speaking to reporters at the U.S. embassy on the edge of the capital San Salvador on Saturday evening, U.S. charge d’affaires Jean Manes decried the court’s decision, saying that allowing immediate reelection was “clearly contrary to the Salvadoran constitution.”Manes said the decision was a direct result of the replacement of the court’s judges with Bukele loyalists, arguing it was part of strategy to “undermine judicial independence” and eliminate counterweights to executive power.”This decline in democracy damages the bilateral relationship between the United States and El Salvador, and the relationship that we’ve had for decades and want to maintain,” she said.Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, also chided the court, saying on Twitter that El Salvador was heading down a path taken by Nicaragua and Honduras in allowing presidents to be reelected.”Democracy in El Salvador is on the edge of the abyss,” said Vivanco, a critic of Bukele. 
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Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter, has suspended beef exports to China, its No. 1 customer, after confirming two cases of “atypical” mad cow disease in two separate domestic meat plants, the agriculture ministry said Saturday.The suspension, which is part of an animal health pact agreed upon between China and Brazil and is designed to allow Beijing time to take stock of the problem, begins immediately, the ministry said in a statement. China will decide when to begin importing again, it added.The suspension is a major blow for Brazilian farmers: China and Hong Kong buy more than half of Brazil’s beef exports.The cases were identified in meat plants in the states of Mato Grosso and Minas Gerais, the ministry said. It said they were the fourth and fifth cases of “atypical” mad cow disease that have been detected in Brazil in 23 years.It said “atypical” mad cow disease develops spontaneously and is not related to eating contaminated foods. Brazil has never had a case of “classic” mad cow disease, it said.The two cases were confirmed Friday after samples were sent to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) lab in Alberta, Canada, the ministry said. The OIE had subsequently been informed of the two cases, in compliance with international norms, the ministry said.The ministry said there was no risk to animal or human health.Brazil’s government said it was hopeful the suspension would be lifted quickly. The country’s powerful agribusiness sector is one of the main drivers of its long-lagging economy. China is Brazil’s top trade partner, and it buys vast quantities of its commodities.
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The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, is calling on the United States and other nations to end COVID-19 border restrictions that keep Central American refugees from seeking asylum.
   
Forced displacement within Central America and Mexico has been soaring over the last five years. The United Nations refugee agency says factors, including chronic violence and insecurity, climate change and natural disasters have forced people to flee their homes in growing numbers.
 
UNHCR spokeswoman Aikaterini Kitidi told VOA the effects of COVID-19 and Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which struck the region with devastating force last year, have triggered further large-scale displacement.   
 
In particular, she said these disasters have created great economic hardship for women and children who have lost their source of income and have difficulty obtaining basic services.   
    
“As a result, such people are forcibly displaced, and they are compelled many times to embark to even further dangerous onward journeys.  What they are exposed to are smugglers, traffickers, and to other risks like, for example, sexual exploitation, abuse, or even murder,” she said.   
    
Kitidi said a staggering 1 million people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have been forced to flee their homes, creating an unprecedented displacement crisis in the region.
 
Due to public health COVID-19 travel restrictions, she said Central American refugees face extreme difficulties in obtaining protections they need in countries of asylum.  She said the UNHCR has appealed to the U.S. government to end the Title 42 public health-related asylum restrictions.  
    
“Under which we see the ports of entry to the United States remaining closed to most asylum seekers with exemptions for some categories of populations with vulnerabilities. And we have asked for the expulsions that are occurring of these people to stop and for the right to claim asylum in the United States to be restored,” she said.   
    
Kitidi said all countries in the region have agreed to share the responsibility to provide protection for those fleeing danger and persecution. She added that discussions are continuing with regional authorities in the hopes they will live up to their agreement. 
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Some cities in Brazil are providing booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine, even though most people have yet to receive their second jabs, in a sign of the concern in the country over the highly contagious delta variant.Rio de Janeiro, currently Brazil’s epicenter for the variant and home to one of its largest elderly populations, began administering the boosters Wednesday. Northeastern cities Salvador and Sao Luis started on Monday, and the most populous city of Sao Paulo will begin Sept. 6. The rest of the nation will follow the next week.France, Israel, China and Chile are among those countries giving boosters to some of their older citizens, but more people in those countries are fully vaccinated than the 30% who have gotten two shots in Brazil. A U.S. plan to start delivery of booster shots by Sept. 20 for most Americans is facing complications that could delay third doses for those who received the Moderna vaccine, administration officials said Friday.About nine out of 10 Brazilians have been vaccinated already or plan to be, according to pollster Datafolha. Most have gotten their first shot but not their second.Brazil’s cases and deaths have been falling for two months, with 621 deaths reported in the seven days through Sept. 2 — far below April’s peak of more than 3,000 reported deaths over a seven-day period. Older Brazilians have expressed concern about the efficacy of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine against the delta variant, prompting authorities to offer the booster shots.Diana dos Santos, 71, received two shots of the Sinovac vaccine even after President Jair Bolsonaro spent months publicly criticizing it. Dos Santos, who lives Rio’s low-income Maré neighborhood, is diabetic and was hospitalized for a heart condition. She refuses to leave home until she gets her booster.“I can’t go out like before and I’m still afraid of all of this,” dos Santos said. “I will feel safer (with a booster).”Because of the variant, some experts say the government should slow the rollout of boosters and focus on distributing second doses. Delta is the most contagious variant identified, and many studies have suggested that one dose doesn’t protect against it.Two shots provide strong protection, with nearly all hospitalizations and deaths among the unvaccinated.Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist and professor at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, said pushing boosters at this early stage recalls the lack of concern given the gamma variant that overwhelmed Amazonian city Manaus earlier this year, only to feed a new wave nationwide. Brazil has seen more than 580,000 deaths from COVID-19, making it home to world’s eighth-highest toll on a per capita basis.Elderly residents wait for a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, during a booster shot campaign for the elderly in long-term care institutions, at Casa de Repouso Laco de Ouro nursing home, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 2, 2021.“It seems we’re in the same movie, repeating the same errors,” Maciel said. “It’s only a matter of time until what’s happening in Rio leads to a greater number of more serious cases in the rest of the country.”The delta variant already is dominant in Rio de Janeiro state, detected in 86% of the samples collected from COVID-19 patients, according to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Intensive care units have reached full capacity in eight municipalities, although only a small rise in deaths have been recorded so far.Authorities in Sao Paulo state expect a similar scenario within weeks. It registered its first confirmed death from the delta variant on Tuesday, a 74-year-old woman who had received two Sinovac shots.Globally, doubts have plagued Chinese vaccines, especially as the delta variant has gained hold in many countries. Chinese officials have maintained the vaccine protects against delta, particularly preventing hospitalizations and severe cases.Still, Brazil’s Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said Aug. 25 that people aged 70 or older or who have a weak immune system will be eligible for a third dose, starting Sept. 15 — preferably with the Pfizer vaccine. He said that people over 18 will have received their first doses by then, although he didn’t address their vulnerability to the delta variant without a second shot.He also criticized governors and mayors who sought to deliver booster shots earlier, saying it could lead to vaccine shortages.Carla Domingues, former coordinator of Brazil’s national immunization program, agrees with the need to provide the elderly boosters, but not for people aged 70 and up right away. Shots should first go to nursing homes and people who are bed-ridden, she said, then people 80 and above, with the age slowly decreasing as supply allows.“Certainly, there will be problems with shortage, because there won’t be enough vaccine,” Domingues said.Japan and South Korea both wrestled with slow vaccine rollouts, and under half their populations are fully vaccinated; their governments are only planning booster shots in the fourth quarter of this year. Malaysia also is considering boosters, but Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the priority is those who haven’t received a first dose.Aloysio Zaluar, 84, is injected with a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine during a booster shot campaign for elderly residents in long-term care institutions in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 1, 2021.Thailand began giving booster shots even as most people wait to be vaccinated — but only for health and front-line workers who received two Sinovac shots. The decision came after a nurse died of COVID-19 in July.Russia, Hungary and Serbia also are giving boosters, although there has been a lack of demand in those countries for the initial shots amid abundant supplies.In addition to doubts over boosters, the issue is sensitive due to implications for global vaccine distribution. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for a moratorium on boosters “to allow those countries that are furthest behind to catch up.”Epidemiologist Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, which advocates for expanding global vaccine access, said in an interview there is no doubt about the need for two jabs, but she sees no scientific or moral justification for a third.“Authorities giving a third dose are prioritizing protection against light disease instead of shielding people in poor countries from death,” said Garrett, who is Brazilian. “That is shameful, immoral, and this vaccine inequity must end.”That doesn’t sway 97-year-old Maria Menezes, who wants to spend time outside her home where she has lived for the last seven decades in Rio’s western region. Her two daughters say Menezes wants to a booster shot.“She asked us to take her for the third vaccine,” said daughter Cristina França, 38. “It will be important to beef up her immunity to reduce her risks. Her life won’t change much after the third dose, because she is more frail now, but she would live with more calm.”
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Cuban authorities on Friday launched a national campaign to vaccinate children ages 2-18 against COVID-19, a prerequisite set by the communist government for schools to reopen amid a spike in infections.Children 12 and older will be the first to receive one of the two domestically produced vaccines, Abdala and Soberana, followed by younger kids.Schools have mostly been closed in Cuba since March 2020, and students have been following lessons on television. With the school year starting Monday, they will continue learning remotely until all eligible children are vaccinated.Laura Lantigua, 17, got the first of three injections at Saul Delgado high school in the Cuban capital, Havana.”I always wanted to be vaccinated,” Lantigua told AFP. She said that doctors measured her blood pressure and temperature before giving her the shot, then told her to wait for an hour to ensure she didn’t have any side effects.”I felt normal, fine,” Lantigua said.Late Friday, the Medicines Regulatory Agency (Cecmed) announced that it authorized the emergency use of the Soberana 2 vaccine for minors between the ages of 2 and 18.The composition of Cuban vaccines, which are not recognized by the World Health Organization, is based on a recombinant protein, the same technique used by the U.S. company Novavax.With the delta variant spreading across the island of 11.2 million, the country’s health care system has been pushed to the brink.Of the 5,300 novel coronavirus deaths recorded since the outbreak started, nearly half were in August, as were almost a third of all reported cases.The government said it plans to gradually reopen schools for in-person instruction in October after the vaccination campaign among children is completed.
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A new report released Wednesday by the United Nations indicates extreme weather events have increased fivefold over the past 50 years, while the number of fatalities related to those events has dropped.Officials from the U.N.’s weather and climate agency, the World Meteorological Organization, introduced the report during a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. The report shows weather-related disasters have occurred on average at a rate of one per day over the past five decades, killing 115 people and causing $202 million in losses daily.Mami Mizutori, U.N. special representative for disaster risk reduction, told reporters she found the report “quite alarming.” She noted that this past July was the hottest July on record, marked by heat waves and floods around the world. The study shows that more people are suffering due to this increased frequency and intensity of weather events.Mizutori said 31 million people were displaced by natural disasters last year, almost surpassing the number displaced by conflicts. She said on average, 26 million people per year are pushed into poverty by extreme weather events. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic is compounding the problem.The U.N. disaster risk specialist said, “We live in this, what we call, the multihazard world, and it demonstrates that we really need to invest more in disaster risk reduction and prevention.”WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the good news in the report is that during that same period, fatalities related to these disasters dropped by nearly three times, due to early warning systems and improved disaster management.But the study also shows that more than 91% of the deaths that do occur happen in developing or low-income countries, as many do not have the same warning and management systems in place.The WMO officials said the economic losses associated with these disasters will worsen without serious climate change mitigation. Taalas said if the right measures are put in place, the trend could be stopped in the next 40 years. WMO called on the G-20 group of world economic powers to keep their promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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Peruvian officials say a bus carrying 63 passengers went off a cliff along a main highway in the Andes mountains, plunging into an abyss and killing at least 29 people in the early hours of Tuesday, authorities said. Police told Peruvian media the incident happened near the town of Matucana, along a narrow stretch of Peru’s Central Highway, a corridor that connects the capital, Lima, to much of the central Andes. Senior police officials told Peruvian television the bus collided with a rock and went over the cliff. Witnesses at the scene said the fall was at least 100 meters. Police officials say they believe the bus was traveling at a reckless rate of speed, but the accident remains under investigation. The accident is the second involving a bus plunging from a road in Peru in a matter of days. On Friday, a bus carrying miners in a different part of the Andes also drove off a cliff, killing 16. The two incidents are unrelated, although bus plunges are not uncommon in Peru, especially in the Andes. The mountain range traverses the length of the country, and its highways are often dangerous, overlooking tall cliffs. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.  
 
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Three prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center are expected to get their first day in court after being held for 18 years in connection with the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and other plots in Southeast Asia.Indonesian prisoner Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali, and two Malaysians are to be arraigned Monday before a military commission on charges that include murder, conspiracy and terrorism. It is merely the first step in what could be a long legal journey for a case that involves evidence tainted by CIA torture, the same issue that is largely responsible for causing other war crimes cases to languish for years at Guantanamo.The hearing also comes as the Biden administration says it intends to close the detention center, where the U.S. still holds 39 of the 779 men seized in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and invasion of Afghanistan.The three men charged in connection with the nightclub bombings were held in secret CIA confinement for three years, followed by 15 more at the isolated U.S. base in Cuba.The decision to charge them was made by a Pentagon legal official at the end of the Trump administration, complicating the effort to close the detention center, said Brian Bouffard, a lawyer for Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, one of the Malaysian men.That made it more difficult for the new administration to add any to the list of those who could potentially be transferred out of Guantanamo or even sent home. “It will even be harder after an arraignment,” Bouffard said.Whether the arraignment would actually take place was not certain. Lawyers have sought to put the case on hold for a number of reasons, including what they have said is insufficient access to interpreters and other resources to mount a defense. The accused were still expected to show up for the hearing.The Navy judge presiding over the case in the commission, a hybrid of military and civilian law, is expected to consider that question before the charges can be formally presented in a secure courtroom surrounded by coils of razor wire on the base.Nurjaman was a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant group with ties to al-Qaida. The U.S. government says he recruited militants, including bin Lep and the other Malaysian charged in the case, Mohammed Farik bin Amin, for jihadist operations.Among the plots that al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah carried out were the October 2002 suicide bombings of Paddy’s Pub and the Sari Club in Bali, Indonesia, and the August 2003 suicide bombing of the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta, Indonesia. The attacks together killed 213 people, including seven Americans, and injured 109 people, including six Americans. Dozens of victims were foreign tourists, mostly Australians.Prosecutors allege bin Lep and the other Malaysian, Mohammed Farik bin Amin, served as intermediaries in the transfer of money used to fund the group’s operations.All three were captured in Thailand in 2003 and transferred to CIA “black sites,” where they were brutalized and subjected to torture, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in 2014. In 2006, they were moved to Guantanamo.It’s unclear why it’s taken so long to charge them before the military commission. Military prosecutors filed charges against the men in June 2017, but the Pentagon legal official who oversees Guantanamo cases rejected the charges for reasons that haven’t been publicly disclosed.The case has many elements that make it complex, including whether statements the men made to authorities can hold up in court because of the abuse they experienced in CIA custody, the fact that people have already been convicted, and in some cases executed, in Indonesia for the attack, and the long time it has taken to even bring charges — much less get to a trial at some point in the future.Some of these same issues have come up in the case against five Guantanamo prisoners charged for planning and aiding the Sept. 11 attacks. They were arraigned in May 2012 and remain in the pretrial phase, with no trial date yet scheduled.Bin Amin’s lawyer, Christine Funk, predicted a lengthy period of defense investigation that will require extensive travel, once the pandemic is over, to interview witnesses and look for evidence. Still, she said, her client is “anxious and eager to litigate this case and go home.”
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Hurricane Ida made landfall in the U.S. Gulf Coast state of Louisiana Sunday as a Category Four storm, with 240-kilometer-per hour winds on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. The storm’s arrival comes 16 years after Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught. As Arash Arabasadi reports, memories of Katrina still loom large. 
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Hurricane Nora is churning northward up Mexico’s Pacific Coast toward the narrow Gulf of California, after making a sweep past the Puerto Vallarta area.Authorities in Mexico’s Jalisco state, where Nora made a brief landfall Saturday night crossing the cape south of Puerto Vallarta, said there were no early reports of serious damage. But forecasters warned that people along Mexico’s central and northern Pacific Coast should be alert to the dangers of flooding, mudslides and perilous surf.Nora had maximum sustained winds of 120 kph late Saturday, with tropical storm force winds extending out 165 kilometers. It was centered about 85 kilometers north-northwest of Puerto Vallarta and heading to the north at 26 kph.The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Nora was likely to keep dragging along the coast and gradually weaken to a tropical storm by Sunday night before entering the Gulf of California, passing close to the mainland resort area of Mazatlan.The storm was predicted to keep moving north up the gulf, before weakening further to a tropical depression and heading inland toward the Arizona border region. The storm’s remnants could bring heavy rains by midweek to the U.S. Southwest and central Rockies, the hurricane center said.The center said some areas along the west coast of Mexico could see rainfall totals from 20 to 30 centimeters with even more in isolated spots.
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Several hundred migrants, including many children, headed north from near Mexico’s border with Guatemala on Saturday hoping to reach the U.S., but Mexican security forces dispersed the group several hours later.About 300 Haitians, Cubans and Central Americans set out on foot from the town of Tapachula, and a few hundred more migrants joined in as the walk progressed.After about eight hours, they passed through an immigration checkpoint without problems, but then National Guard troops in riot gear blocked their way as a heavy rain fell. Some of the migrants were arrested while others eluded capture and kept heading north. By Saturday night about 200 had arrived the town of Huixtla, said the Rev. Heyman Vazquez, a priest who works with migrants.Immigration agents also helped break up the group. An Associated Press journalist saw one immigration agent kick a migrant who was already immobilized and on the ground.The Collective of Monitoring and Documentation of Human Rights of the Southeast, which is a coalition of groups that work with migrants, said some people were injured though it gave no numbers. It said the detained migrants had been loaded on buses and driven away.The flow of migrants from Central America has increased since the beginning of the year and in recent days despair had grown especially among the Haitian community stranded in Tapachula. This week they began to demonstrate seeking to speed up their immigration procedures and threatened to leave in a caravan if Mexican officials did not pay attention to them.The group that started out Saturday was the biggest one this year and recalled the caravans that occurred in Mexico before the pandemic and the big formation that tried to leave Honduras in January but that was blocked from crossing Guatemala.The Mexican government has insisted this week that it will continue with its policy of containing migrants. Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said Friday that the main goal of the deployment of the army, navy and National Guard is to “stop all migration.” He said more than 14,000 military and National Guard personnel are deployed in Mexico’s south.
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U.S. military aircraft are flying food, tarps and other material into southern Haiti amid a shift in the international relief effort to focus on helping people in the areas hardest hit by the recent earthquake to make it through hurricane season.Aircraft flying out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, arrived throughout the day Saturday in the mostly rural, mountainous southern peninsula that was the epicenter of the Aug. 14 earthquake. In Jeremie, people waved and cheered as a Marine Corps unit from North Carolina descended in a tilt-rotor Osprey with pallets of rice, tarps and other supplies.Most of the material, however, wasn’t destined for Jeremie. It was for distribution to remote mountain communities where landslides destroyed homes and the small plots of the many subsistence farmers in the area, said Patrick Tiné of Haiti Bible Mission, one of several groups coordinating the delivery of aid.”They lost their gardens, they lost their animals,” Tiné said as he took a break from helping unload boxes of rice. “The mountains slid down and they lost everything.”At the request of the Haitian government, getting as much help to such people as fast as possible is now the focus of the $32 million U.S. relief effort, said Tim Callahan, a disaster response team leader for the U.S. Agency for International Development.In the immediate aftermath of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake, which killed more than 2,200 people and damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 homes, the focus was on search and rescue.That was complicated by heavy rain from Tropical Storm Grace as well as earthquake damage to roads and bridges, in an area where the infrastructure was in bad shape to begin with. The threat of gangs, in a country still reeling from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, also made it hard to distribute aid. As a result, many Haitians had grown increasingly impatient with relief efforts.”We’re just trying to get as much material out to the most affected areas as fast as we can. If you do that, then the frustration level goes down,” Callahan said over the roar of helicopters at the Port-au-Prince airport, where U.S. troops and civilian aid workers labored to load aircraft with pallets in the hot sun.That is where the U.S. military comes into play. Troops under the direction of Miami-based Southern Command have so far delivered more than 120 tons of relief assistance.Among those troops is the unit from North Carolina, known as the Fighting Griffins and based at the New River Marine Corps Air Station, which allowed Associated Press journalists to come along as they delivered emergency supplies.Two crews took off from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flew to Port-au-Prince to pick up supplies, and then made multiple trips across the mountainous southern peninsula to deliver their loads.It was an upbeat mission, with the flight crew and pilots helping the Haitian aid workers unload the aircraft, then shaking hands as they said their goodbyes.One crew, which delivered more than 3.8 tons of goods on Saturday, brought along a Marine of Haitian descent from New York City as their interpreter.”It really means a lot to me to do something like this,” said Lance Cpl. Lunel Najac.The U.S. effort is expected to continue at least for several more weeks, though whether it will be enough to get people through the rest of the hurricane season remains to be seen.”People need food, water, tents, tarps,” said Wilkens Sanon of Mission of Hope Foundation, another of the groups working with the U.S. to channel aid to people who need it most.”It is very, very bad right now,” he said.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned of torrential rains, life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides as Hurricane Nora made landfall on Saturday evening on the northwest coast of the Mexican state of Jalisco.After making landfall near Vicente Guerrero, the Category 1 hurricane has continued northward near the coast, NHC said.Videos posted on social media showed storm surges flooding roads and fierce winds lashing buildings and downing trees.Hurricane warnings have been issued for coastal stretches of the states of Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco, the agency said.”Nora is expected to produce rainfall totals of 8 to 12 inches (20-30 centimeters) with maximum amounts of 20 inches (50 centimeters) this weekend into early next week,” according to the NHC’s latest advisory. “This rainfall will produce life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides.”The agency also warned that swells generated by the hurricane could produce “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” on the southern and southwestern coast of Mexico.As of 8 p.m. EST, Nora was about 48 kilometers south southwest of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, packing maximum sustained winds of 129 kph.From the western coast of Mexico, the hurricane is then projected to approach and move into the Gulf of California on Sunday and Monday.  
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As Haiti recovers from a quake that struck the country nearly two weeks ago, relatives bury a girl near the ruins of her house. She’s among the more than 2,200 people killed by the 7.2 magnitude quake. Elsewhere, women say they fear for their safety and that of their children. More with VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo.
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Cuba has introduced new controls over online content deemed to affect national interests, in a move described as “Orwellian” by independent media and activists.Decree 35 was passed last week, following the biggest anti-government protests in decades, as Cubans called for better living conditions amid economic hardship and the pandemic. Details of the unrest spread in part because of social media.The new law is aimed at content or messages that Havana deems to be false news, offensive or that may incite acts “that upset public order.” Under it, anyone who tries to “subvert the constitutional order” will be considered a cyberterrorist.  A special channel also has been set up for citizens to inform on anyone who breaks the law.”Our Decree 35 goes against misinformation and cyber lies,” Reuters quoted Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel as saying.The Cuban president blamed the July 11 protests on an online campaign that he said was led by U.S.-backed counter-revolutionaries.  So far, the penalties for breaching the regulations have not been made public, but it is believed the government would fine offenders, a Cuba-based journalist who requested anonymity, said.FILE – Police detain an anti-government demonstrator during a protest in Havana, Cuba, July 11, 2021.‘Orwellian’ measuresIndependent media within Cuba and analysts have said the decree is similar to the totalitarianism described in George Orwell’s novel 1984, in which Big Brother controls every aspect of citizens’ lives.“This decree is a way of silencing any critical voices in Cuba, which may have existed after 62 years of communist rule,” Normando Hernandez, of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press, told VOA. The Miami-based organization supports opposition media on the island.“It is a way to kill off all liberty of expression. It means even if you call a meeting, this can be construed as cyberterrorism. Any content that the government construes as against the government can be seen as a crime,” he said.No arrests under the law have been reported. But Hernandez said that many Cubans already are fearful of violating the legislation, and they are avoiding posting on social media platforms.Bertrand De La Grange, chief editor in Madrid for independent Cuban website 14ymedio, said the new decree is “Orwellian.”“They are trying to create the same totalitarian world as George Orwell described in 1984 or Animal Farm,” he told VOA.De La Grange said the government introduced further restrictions on free speech in response to the biggest demonstrations since the 1990s, which in part were caused by criticism over the high coronavirus rate.  “The fact the regime is doing this shows it is on the defensive. It is not solving any of the major problems. The COVID-19 situation is much worse than the official media say,” he added.FILE – Police scuffle with anti-government demonstrators during a protest in Havana, Cuba, July 11, 2021.As of Thursday, Cuba has more than a half-million confirmed cases and 4,500 deaths from COVID-19, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University. Its new case rate is estimated at 9,376 a day over the past week.De La Grange said 14ymedio and other independent media had managed to circumvent controls because Havana does not operate a total block on the internet in the way that China does.“This decree is a way to try to punish those who publish what the regime calls ‘fake news’ but it is what we know is the true situation,” said De La Grange.Under the new decree, the state telecommunications company can suspend access to the internet for those found to have broken the new law.Journalist Camila Acosta said that despite the regulations, Havana could not prevent millions of Cubans from accessing social media.“They can charge independent journalists like me – I have had five telephones confiscated this year alone – but they cannot possibly control millions of Cubans who access social media all the time. It is impossible,” said Acosta, who works for the news website Cubanet, and for the Spanish daily ABC.Acosta was arrested after reporting on the July demonstrations and has been placed under house arrest for six months while police investigate her case.Cuba Detains, Questions Dozens of Journalists Over Protest Coverage ‘They tried to intimidate me,’ says Cuban journalist who was detained for a week in Havana and is now under house arrest “This will make my job more difficult, but they have introduced previous legislation to attack the free media so this is not new. What is new is that it is an attempt to stop people organizing demonstrations,” Acosta told VOA from her home in Havana.‘Digital repression’Since the introduction of mobile internet a bit more than two years ago, platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram have allowed Cubans to air complaints.Havana insists that it permits free speech as long as it is “within the revolution.” But Decree 35 has alarmed Cuba civil rights campaigners, who say it uses vague language regarding what information internet users should provide to the government.The law says users should grant public security institutions the “technical facilities and services they require” and give the Communications Ministry the “information that (the ministry) determines.””We have to see the context of this. Cuba has already introduced legislation to restrict the activities of journalists and activists,” said Amnesty’s Americas director Erika Guevara-Rosas, referring to a law passed in 2019. “This new decree is not sending out a message to them, it is sending a message to the general Cuban population.” “It wants to strengthen a culture of fear among anyone who might be thinking of organizing protests or complaining about the fact you have to stand in line for hours to get basics in Cuba,” Guevara-Rosas told VOA.The communist government wanted to “formalize digital repression” in a country in which it already controls all aspects of life, Guevara-Rosas said. U.S. lawmakers, including Senator Marco Rubio, as well as foreign diplomats in Havana, have criticized the new measure.“What the dictatorship doesn’t realize is that the Cuban people have lost all fear to voice their opinions, they’ve realized the despotic nature of the regime and aren’t afraid of protesting against over 60 [years] of repression,” Rubio told VOA.Congress this month passed an amendment co-sponsored by the Republican senator from Florida to provide Cubans uncensored access to the internet.“It is now in the [U.S.] president’s hands to act upon what Congress has approved,” Rubio said.British Ambassador to Cuba Antony Stokes also voiced concern at the decree, tweeting, “Harassment, detentions against peaceful protesters, trials without due process and censorship embodied today by Decree Law 35 silence legitimate voices and violate international conventions.”
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Thursday that Tropical Storm Ida in the Caribbean Sea was likely to become a major hurricane and reach the United States on Sunday.In its latest advisory, the center said an Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter plane determined that Ida had formed and was about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west-southwest of Jamaica, moving northwest about 22 kph (14 mph).The storm had maximum sustained winds of about 65 kph (40 mph). Forecasters said they expected it to strengthen into a hurricane as it moves to the west of Cuba and into the southern Gulf of Mexico.”There is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge, damaging hurricane-force winds, and heavy rainfall Sunday and Monday, especially along the coast of Louisiana,” the hurricane center said.Forecasters fear dramatic strengthening as the storm moves over the Gulf of Mexico. On her Twitter account, Mississippi State University atmospheric scientist Kim Wood said the storm track would take it over the warmest waters in the gulf.She said the water in the area was about 30 degrees Celsius to a depth of 40 meters. “I don’t have words for that,” she said in the tweet.Such extremely warm waters favor rapid strengthening after Ida enters the gulf Friday.Forecasters said that while there was still a great deal of uncertainty, the forecast track would take the storm into Louisiana, which was hit hard by three major hurricanes last year. The hurricane center was already warning of a “life-threatening” storm surge when the storm makes landfall and the potential for damaging winds and flooding rain.Forecasters said the storm track was still coming into focus and could shift in the next several days. They urged concerned citizens in the potential path to continue to watch the storm’s movement.
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