Exiled Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide left the Central African Republic yesterday for a controversial visit to Jamaica.
Aristide, who arrived in Africa two weeks ago after being chased from his Caribbean nation by an armed rebellion, flew out despite strong US and Haitian objections.
PHOTO: AP
The departure of Aristide, who says he is still Haiti's elected president and was forced out of office by US troops -- a charge hotly denied by Washington -- left after a delegation mainly of US and Jamaican lawmakers flew in on Sunday to whisk him back to the Caribbean.
The delegation included Randall Robinson, the former head of black US lobbying group TransAfrica, whose wife said that Aristide was due to make refueling stops, including one in Senegal, before reaching Jamaica.
Hazel Ross Robinson said she spoke to her husband by telephone shortly before the plane took off. Asked if Aristide was aboard, she said: "Yes, that's my understanding."
Jamaica's prime minister has said Aristide would spend up to 10 weeks in Haiti's close Caribbean neighbor.
While Aristide has not been granted asylum in Jamaica, the planned visit has been slammed by Haiti for stoking tensions there as US and French troops battle to restore order.
Haiti's interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said allowing Aristide to visit Jamaica, just 180 km from Haitian shores, would be an "unfriendly act."
Washington supported the view that Aristide should stay away.
"We think it's a bad idea. We believe that President Aristide, in a sense, forfeited his ability to lead his people, because he did not govern democratically," US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told NBC's said.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "And the hope is that he will not come back into the hemisphere and complicate (the) situation."
Jamaican lawmaker Sharon Hay Webster said the delegation's goal was to arrange for the ousted leader to see his two young US-based children in Jamaica.
Aristide, who has been living in the Central African Republic, flew out of Bangui before yesterday's planned celebrations in the country to mark President Francois Bozize's coming to power in a coup d'etat on March 15 last year.
Washington says Aristide, a former parish priest regarded as a messiah by many of the poor he championed but accused of despotism and corruption by his enemies, resigned and left his country voluntarily.
The US and Jamaican delegation included US Representative Maxine Waters.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS