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Latin America & Caribbean
Haiti's new interim Prime Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert holds a glass with a drink after a transitional council took power with the aim of returning stability to the country, where gang violence has caused chaos and misery, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti April 25, 2024.
Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry formally resigned on Thursday to be replaced by Finance Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert, who will work with a newly sworn in transitional council. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been ravaged by gang violence and effectively without a prime minister since March 12.
Get up to speed: Henry agreed to step down last month after gangs blocked his reentry to the country from Kenya, where he was trying to secure a multinational security force to assist him in restoring law and order to the country.
Many of the gangs are led by a man named Jimmy Chérizier, aka Barbecue. They have taken advantage of the power vacuum left by Henry’s absence and are now in control of about 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and large swaths of the country. Barbecue said last month he would consider laying down weapons if armed groups were allowed to take part in talks to establish the new government.
Boisvert and thenine-member council, of which seven have voting powers, have a steep climb to tackle the gang violence. The council will appoint a provisional electoral commission, a requirement before elections can take place, and establish a national security council.Hard Numbers: Russia shoots down space resolution, US economy sputters, Nigerian prisoners make slippery escape, Ecuador gets lifeline
A Russian Soyuz rocket is carried to the launching pad at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on the territory of the former Soviet Kazakhstan on December 18.
13: A UN Security Council resolution reaffirming a long-standing prohibition on arms races in outer space got 13 votes in favor this week, but it was shot down by a single veto from UNSC permanent member Russia. Moscow says it wasn’t necessary to support a resolution that merely reaffirmed a 1967 treaty that Russia is already part of, but the US ambassador to the UN asked, “What could you possibly be hiding?” In recent months, the US has said it believes Russia is developing a new space-based, anti-satellite weapon.
1.6: The US economy expanded by just 1.6% in the first quarter of the year, lagging analyst forecasts by nearly a full percentage point, as consumer spending slowed. Normally that would create momentum for the Fed to cut interest rates to spur growth, but there’s no joy there either: Core inflation (which excludes food and energy) rose 3.7%, higher than economists expectations, limiting the scope for any near-term rate cuts.
118: Authorities in the Nigerian capital of Abuja are on high alert after a rainstorm destroyed a fence at a nearby penitentiary, allowing as many as 118 inmates to escape. A prison service spokesperson blamed “colonial era” facilities. Weak security and run-down buildings contribute to frequent prison-breaks in the West African nation.
4 billion: After months of talks, Ecuador and the IMF agreed to a $4 billion loan agreement meant to help stabilize the small Andean country’s finances as it grapples with a vicious cycle of economic hardship, rising poverty, and skyrocketing homicides. Just days earlier, Ecuadorians had voted yes in a referendum to boost the government’s ability to crack down on drug violence.Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been engulfed in violent gang warfare and without a leader since its former prime minister, Ariel Henry, was barred reentry to the country on March 12. Henry formally resigned on Thursday, and a new transitional government was sworn in.
The chaos has triggered a major wave of internal displacement, putting its border with the Dominican Republic, in a state of crisis. The Dominican Republic has doubled down on border security in response, but relations between the two countries, which share the island of Hispaniola, have long been complex.
Haiti was once the richest colony in the world. But under French rule, the island suffered from severe deforestation, leading to soil erosion, reduced agricultural productivity, and increased vulnerability to natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes. When the Dominican Republic gained independence from Haiti in 1844, it introduced reforestation programs that – along with its mountain ranges – have helped it develop a more sustainable agricultural sector. But Haiti's drier land and less fertile soil have made agriculture more challenging.
While the economies of the two countries were comparable in the mid-20th century, the Dominican economy gradually improved over the subsequent decades, while Haiti, long plagued by political instability, has seen its economy deteriorate.
Hard Numbers: Argentina in the money, China-Libya drones plot in Canada, Recording Gaza’s casualties, Arms spending peaks
Javier Milei, the President of Argentina, speaks at the final day of the conservative conference on February 24, 2024.
0.2: Argentina is in the black for the first time since 2008. The South American country is starting Q2 with a 0.2% fiscal surplus in quarterly revenues. President Javier Milei took a victory lap and promised to continue his fiscal austerity program, causing bond valuations to jump.
2: Two former UN employees in Montreal were charged with participating in a conspiracy to sell Chinese military equipment to Libya, including large drones capable of carrying multiple missiles. The men are accused of violating sanctions related to the Libyan civil war (2014-2020) between 2018 and 2021. One of the suspects was arrested Tuesday, but the other remains at large.
80,000: The US State Department’s annual human rights assessment found that nearly 80,000 people in Gaza have been killed or injured during the Israeli offensive, amounting to some 3% of the population.
2.4 trillion: The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that global military expenditures reached an all-time high of $2.4 trillion, a year-over-year increase of 6.8%. The United States alone made up 37% of that spending, and with China spending another 12%, the two leading military powers cumulatively spent just under half of the world’s entire military budget.
It’s World Book Day! We’re big readers here at GZERO, and we suspect you might be as well. Alas, literature just doesn’t have the caché it once did, but in some ways we are living in a golden age of literacy. At no point ever in human history have so many people been able to read and write.
Some 87% of all people above age 15 were able to read as of 2022, up from 67% as recently as 1979. That’s a big bump, but wind the clock back a bit more to see just how far we’ve come. In 1820, the World Economic Forum estimates that just 12% of the world’s adults could read and write.
Have a look at recent progress in our chart, and don’t forget to crack open that book you’ve been meaning to get to today!
Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa looks on as his wife Lavinia Valbonesi (not pictured) takes part in a referendum that asks voters to support mostly security-related questions to fight rising violence, in Guayaquil, Ecuador April 21, 2024.
Ecuadorians showed overwhelming support for a government crackdown on drug-related violence in referendums this weekend in what could become a regional trend. Quito won support for joint police-military patrols, extradition of wanted criminals, tighter gun control, and tougher punishments for murder and drug trafficking, among other measures.
Cocaine boom: Ecuador had long maintained a reputation for tranquility despite being sandwiched between the major cocaine production hubs of Colombia and Peru. Coke is in the midst of a major resurgence, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, with seven straight years of growing use.
Consequently, traffickers are trying to ship more blow than ever to the US, and increasingly doing so through Ecuador’s conveniently located ports. With the drugs come weapons, money, and violence, tearing at the social fabric. In August of last year, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated after receiving death threats from gang leader Jose Adolfo Macias, who later escaped prison.
Iron fist: Ecuador is far from alone in experiencing a surge in drug violence, and leaders in Latin America are looking at Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s “mano dura” (iron fist) crackdown as an example.
“Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa took from the Bukele playbook in realizing that citizens are open to more draconian type measures,” says Eurasia Group associate Yael Sternberg, though she emphasized that the actual policies and problems are different.
If it pays off for Noboa like it has for Bukele, Sternberg says Chile is the country to watch next, with a growing crime issue and elections next year.
A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship searching for two MSDF helicopters in waters east of Torishima Island in the Izu Island chain in the Pacific after they crashed.
2: Two Japanese navy helicopters crashed over the weekend during nighttime training in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo, leaving one dead and seven missing. Officials believe it’s “highly likely” that the two choppers collided. The US pledged its support after the crash, offering to help with the search and rescue. Japan in recent years has boosted defense spending and strengthened military cooperation with the US amid concerns over China’s ambitions in the region.
800,000: Top UN officials on Friday warned that Sudan’s civil war was placing 800,000 people in the city of El Fasher in “extreme and immediate danger.” Fighting there could “unleash bloody intercommunal strife throughout Darfur,” says UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo. The war in Sudan, which just entered its second year, has displaced eight million people and left 25 million in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.
50: The US on Thursday restarted deportation flights to Haiti, which has been consumed by deadly gang violence, sending about 50 Haitians back to the Caribbean nation. The move was fervently decried by rights groups and faced pushback from some Democratic lawmakers in Washington. President Joe Biden has felt pressure to take a stronger approach to illegal immigration as Republicans zero in on the issue of border security amid an election year.
14 million: Tens of thousands of people in the Canary Islands took to the streets on Saturday to protest against mass tourism, which they say is putting too much strain on the Spanish archipelago and driving up housing costs while depleting resources. Last year, nearly 14 million people visited the Canary Islands, which is home to 2.2 million people. The protesters called for authorities to limit the number of visitors and place more restrictions on property purchases by foreigners, among other steps.
Latest
New chapter for Haiti as Henry steps down
Graphic Truth: One island, two realities
Graphic Truth: World literacy reaches new heights
Ecuador votes to get tough on drugs
