A strike called by Haiti's opposition shuttered most stores and banks in the capital for a second day Friday, the latest in a series of protests aimed at pressuring President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down.
The strike came as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he would cancel a trip to the Caribbean nation this weekend due to worsening unrest. On Wednesday, thousands of students and other Aristide opponents marched in a protest marred by violence that left three dead and more than two dozen injured.
Bloomberg is postponing the trip "in light of recent conflict in Haiti" and on the recommendation of the US State Department, press secretary Ed Skyler said. Eliminating the stop in Haiti, the mayor will travel on to Jamaica Sunday as planned, Skyler said.
Meanwhile, traffic was light Friday in Port-au-Prince and there were noticeably few customers at outdoor markets, though vendors were out as usual.
"My only faith is in God. I don't know what's happening, but I know I'm poor, my children are hungry and I can't make ends meet if there's no peace," said Margarethe Pierre, 45, a mother of five who was selling clocks and radios from a stand.
Informal businesses like hers dominate Haiti's withering economy, and government spokesman Mario Dupuy said the fact that so many people kept working showed the strike had little effect. Government offices were open and buses were running as usual.
"Most people went about their business as usual," he said, adding that protests and strikes are "leading the country nowhere."
But the Democratic Platform, a coalition of opposition parties and civil groups that called the strike, declared it a success. New street protests against Aristide were called for Sunday and Monday.
During protests in the past four months, at least 45 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded.
Gas stations were to remain closed through the weekend as the National Association of Petroleum Distributors said it was protesting vandalism and robberies of stations during Wednesday's unrest.
Most doctors didn't report for work Friday at the capital's State University Hospital, where witnesses said armed thugs stormed the building two days earlier demanding to see any who had joined student protests.
Meanwhile, witnesses said government opponents burned two houses in western Gonaives on Wednesday. No one was reported injured.
Government opponents accuse Aristide of hoarding power and failing to help the poor, while the president accuses the opposition of impeding progress.
Tensions have been rising since Aristide's party won 2000 legislative elections that observers said were flawed. The opposition refuses to participate in new elections unless Aristide steps down.
The political crisis is expected to intensify as a vast majority of Parliament members' terms expire Monday.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS