Wretchard.com

From the NYT

On the streets, vigilantes prowled for suspects, and the police killed at least three people in gunfights. The vast majority of those arrested have turned out to be from Colombia — former military men said to have turned mercenaries — as questions arose about why it had been so easy for attackers to burst into President Jovenel Moïse’s home and kill him, seemingly with no shots fired from security staff.

Haiti Calls U.S. for Troops, After Wild Day of Gunfights and Suspicion

At least 20 people were arrested in the assassination of the Haitian president — 18 Colombians and 2 Americans of Haitian descent — on a day of deepening mystery.

MIAMI — An American arrested in connection to the assassination of Haiti’s president worked alongside Sean Penn to rebuild the country from a devastating earthquake in 2010, according to three people familiar with the Hollywood actor’s decade-old relief drive…

The two people said James Solages worked as a driver and in a security capacity for J/P Haitian Relief Organization, which was started by Penn following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010 that killed more than 300,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The Latest: American arrested in Haiti worked alongside Penn

The latest developments in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse: —— MIAMI — An American arrested in connection to the assassination of Haiti’s president worked alongside Sean Penn to rebuild the country from a devastating earthquake in 2010, according to three people familiar with th…

A lone security guard at the Taiwanese embassy in Haiti was responsible for the arrests of 11 suspects in the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse, after a group of heavily armed commandos invaded the diplomatic compound the evening after the murder.

Inside Taiwanese embassy siege in Haiti: how a lone security guard helped wrangle 11 suspects

The guard’s harrowing ordeal helps shed light on the bloody aftermath of Jovenel Moïse’s assassination

“The way it was meowing was too cute to bear,” she said.

A Digital Cat Is Melting Hearts (and Napping a Lot) in Japan

The calico prances and dozes on a 26-by-62-foot LED billboard in Tokyo. It has drawn crowds in real life and sparked joy on social media.

Five years after a landmark international arbitration court ruling repudiated China’s claims to the waters where Megu fishes, the 48-year-old complains that his encounters with Chinese boats are more frequent than ever. …

“I was so scared,” said Megu, describing how a Chinese vessel had tracked his wooden outrigger boat for three hours some 140 nautical miles (260 km) from the coast in May.

He said other fishermen had reported being rammed or blasted with water cannons while working in what they considered their historic fishing grounds – which they had hoped to secure after the ruling in The Hague in 2016.

Five years after South China Sea ruling, China’s presence around Philippines only growing

Filipino fisherman Randy Megu has often braved the storms that spring up in the South China Sea, but these days he has a greater fear: seeing a Chinese maritime enforcement vessel on the horizon.

For those want to hire mercenaries, Colombia is a popular choice. The South American country’s nearly 60 years of internal conflict have provided a prolific training ground for soldiers …

“There are a significant number of Colombian soldiers in Dubai, for example.”

The United Arab Emirates has been an important client of Colombian ex-soldiers, dispatching them to fight Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, alongside fighters from Panama, El Salvador and Chile, according to Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council thinktank and professor at Georgetown and the National Defense University.

Why were Colombian ex-soldiers in Haiti? Experts say they are popular mercenaries

Highly-trained Colombian soldiers left at a loose end after retirement have frequently been tempted by opportunities to ply their trade abroad as private military contractors from Iraq to Yemen, military officials and experts said on Friday.

Haitian government officials said they had requested that the United States send in troops to protect Haiti’s port, airport, gasoline reserves and other key infrastructure as the country has descended into turmoil in the wake of the brazen assassination of President Jovenel Moïse early Wednesday morning.

Live Updates: Haitian Officials Request U.S. Forces

Fears that the already fragile country will descend further into turmoil after the president’s assassination are growing. Two Americans arrested in the investigation claim to have been only “translators” for the operation, according to a judge who interviewed them.

“There is no more Parliament, the Senate is missing for a long time, there’s no president of the Court of Cassation,” said Didier Le Bret, a former French ambassador to Haiti, adding of Mr. Joseph: “Everything will rest on him.”…

But the money did not set Haiti on a new path — and many experts believe the country is worse off since the reconstruction began. A cholera outbreak soon after the quake that killed at least 10,000 Haitians was linked to the arrival of infected peacekeepers from the United Nations, which only admitted involvement years later but denied legal responsibility, shielded by international treaties granting the organization diplomatic immunity.

How the Assassination of Haiti’s President Follows Years of Strife and Gridlock

The country freed by slaves from French colonial overlords more than 200 years ago has struggled with a legacy of corruption, violence and political paralysis.

Millennial and Gen Z activists are connecting their struggles at home to the workings of US empire in Palestine, Haiti, Colombia, and other countries.

The Kids Are Reimagining International Solidarity

Millennial and Gen Z activists are connecting their struggles at home to the workings of US empire in Palestine, Haiti, Colombia, and other countries.

“I and I alone have destroyed my career, my relationships and my life,” a tearful Avenatti told Manhattan federal judge Paul Gardephe, according to reporters in the courtroom.

US celebrity lawyer Avenatti gets 2.5 years for Nike extortion

Michael Avenatti, the celebrity lawyer who represented porn actress Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against ex-president Donald Trump, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison Thursday for attempting to extort Nike.

James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, both US citizens of Haitian descent, were arrested along with 15 Colombian nationals over Wednesday’s brazen raid on Moïse’s mansion in the hills above Port-au-Prince, according to Haitian police…

Not everyone was buying the government’s description of the attack… Many wondered how the sophisticated attackers described by police could penetrate Moïse’s home, security detail and panic room and then escape unharmed but were then caught without planning a successful getaway.

Two American ‘mercenaries’ arrested alongside 15 Colombians in Haiti

James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, both US citizens of Haitian descent, were arrested along with 15 Colombian nationals over Wednesday’s brazen assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Bars, restaurants and karaoke parlours serving alcohol to close

Tokyo Olympics will be held without spectators – Games minister

Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have agreed to hold the event without spectators under a COVID-19 state of emergency, Japan’s Olympics Minister Tamayo Marukawa said on Thursday.

Haiti’s security forces were locked in a fierce gun battle on Wednesday with assailants who assassinated President Jovenel Moise at his home overnight, plunging the already impoverished, violence-wracked nation deeper into chaos.

Haiti police battle gunmen who killed president, amid fears of chaos

Haiti’s security forces were locked in a fierce gun battle on Wednesday with assailants who assassinated President Jovenel Moise at his home overnight, plunging the already impoverished, violence-wracked nation deeper into chaos.

No. The world doesn’t give a damn about Haiti or the Congo. The more public tears are shed about a place the less they care. When the UN shows up it’s like the undertaker measuring your country for a coffin.

But it proved good enough.

• Haitian First Lady Martine Moise, 47, was airlifted to Miami with multiple gunshot wounds on Wednesday
• Her husband, President Jovenel Moise, was killed in a brazen assassination raid on their home overnight
• Gang of ‘mercenaries’ posing as US DEA agents staged the raid speaking English and Spanish
• Shocking eyewitness footage shows killers shout into a megaphone: ‘DEA operation. Everybody stand down’
• US State Department slams any suggestion that the killers were US government agents as ‘absolutely false’
• Haitian officials say they believe assassins were a gang composed of Haitians, Colombians and Venezuelans
• Assassins may have escaped across the border to Dominican Republic or remain hiding in Haiti, officials say
• Dominican military is mobilizing at the border as Haitian PM declares ‘state of siege’ with emergency powers

Haiti’s first lady flown to Miami hospital after husband’s killing

Haiti’s First Lady Martine Moise, 53, suffered multiple gunshot wounds during her husband’s assassination in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, overnight, and was transported to Miami for treatment.

Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Bocchit Edmond, told Reuters the gunmen falsely identified themselves as agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, citing video footage the government has in its possession but added: “No way they were DEA agents.”

The attack “was carried out by foreign mercenaries and professional killers — well-orchestrated”, Mr Edmond said in Washington.

Gunmen disguised as US DEA agents assassinated Haitian President, ambassador says

A squad of “foreign mercenaries and professional killers” with high-calibre weapons kill Haiti’s President, Jovenel Moïse, and injure the first lady in a “well-orchestrated” raid on their private residence.

The results come two weeks after voting in the primary ended, on June 22. While early returns showed Adams in the lead, tens of thousands of absentee ballots had to be counted and rounds of tabulations has to be done under the ranked-choice system in which voters ranked up to five candidates for mayor in order of preference. …

However, the new voting system was marred by an error made as votes were being counted on June 29, when elections officials inadvertently included 135,000 old test ballots in the count. The incorrect vote tallies were posted for several hours before officials acknowledged the error and took them down.

Eric Adams Wins Democratic Primary in New York City’s Mayoral Race: AP | National Review

The Associated Press called the race for Adams after preliminary results showed he defeated former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by 8,426 votes.

More than 2,600 people came to the camps to receive shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured and marketed in India as Covishield. Some said that they became suspicious when their shots did not show up in the Indian government’s online portal tracking vaccinations, and when the hospitals that the organizers had claimed to be affiliated with did not match the names on the vaccination certificates they received.

Indian police investigate whether scammers gave thousands of shots of salt water instead of vaccine.

Fourteen people have been charged with conspiracy and forgery, the latest example of fraud undermining India’s pandemic response.