Bolivia ‘going from bad to worse’: At the barricades with Morales supporters

By AFP
October 29, 2024

Supporters of former Bolivian President Evo Morales block a road linking Cochabamba with La Paz, near the village of Sipe Sipe, on October 28, 2024 - Copyright AFP AIZAR RALDES

Gonzalo TORRICO

At a traffic stop on a road leading to the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba, a group of coca-chewing demonstrators man a barricade of tree trunks.

For over two weeks, supporters of former president Evo Morales have been blocking roads around the country, particularly in Cochabamba, his political stronghold, to ward off his potential arrest on rape charges.

The roadblocks are the latest escalation in an intensifying political atmosphere in the South American nation.

On Sunday, the standoff between Morales, who resigned under a cloud in 2019 but is now trying to make a comeback, and his successor, Luis Arce, spiraled further after Morales accused state agents of attempting to assassinate him.

A video shared on social media showed a pickup he was traveling in riddled with bullet holes and the driver with blood on his head.

The government says police fired on Morales’s vehicle after he ran a checkpoint, and after police came under fire from a vehicle in his convoy.



– Broader anti-government movement –



“How could they attack him? Here in Cochabamba we won’t allow that kind of situation. We will intensify our mobilization,” Jose Loayza, a 40-year-old wheat farmer who was among the protesters at the traffic stop, told AFP indignantly.

Supporters of Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, who ruled from 2006 to 2019, say the 65-year-old is the victim of “judicial persecution.”

Over the last few weeks, protests have ballooned into a wider anti-government revolt, and tensions with security forces have reached boiling point.

On Tuesday, 12 police officers were injured in clashes with demonstrators near the central town of Mairana, the second such incident in four days as the security forces move in to try to clear the roads.

Bolivia’s 12 million inhabitants have been struggling with shortages of fuel and spiraling food prices since the government last year reduced oil imports to offset a decline in natural gas exports.

Annual inflation stood at 6.2 percent in September, the highest level since July 2014.

The roadblocks have accentuated food and fuel shortages nationwide and plunged the economy even deeper into disarray.

The economy ministry estimates millions of dollars in losses for the transport sector alone.

– ‘Our pockets are empty’ –

“Our earnings are not enough to pay for all the things that have gone up in price: rice, sugar, cooking oil,” a woman in Sipe Sipe, a village near Cochabamba, who did not wish to be identified, told AFP.

“Our pockets are empty and we cannot feed our children,” she said.

Near Sipe Sipe, demonstrators formed a line to pass heavy rocks collected from a dry river bed to block the bridge above.

A poster of Arce had been defaced with black paint.

“The country is going from bad to worse,” Grover Torrico, a truck driver, said.

“We’re blocking (roads) to obtain what we need: food, fuel, dollars,” he added.

Morales, a former coca grower, was extremely popular until he tried to bypass the constitution and seek a fourth term.

Despite being barred from running again, he wants to challenge his minister-turned-rival Arce for the nomination of the left-wing MAS party in the country’s August 2025 presidential elections.

Days after he lead a march of thousands of mainly Indigenous Bolivians on the capital La Paz to protest Arce’s policies, prosecutors announced he was under investigation for rape, human trafficking and human smuggling over his alleged relationship with a 15-year-old girl in 2015.

Morales is accused of fathering a daughter with the girl.

Morales has called the accusations “a lie,” and has directly accused Arce of trying to assassinate him in order to prevent his return to power.

“We want President Luis Arce to resign. He must call new elections,” Loayza said.

He vowed Arce would suffer the same fate as former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who fled the country in October 2003 after ordering a bloody crackdown on protests over his free-market policies, in which dozens of people were killed.

“We already sent Sanchez de Lozada packing. What’s to stop us doing the same with Arce?” he asked.

UN rights chief urges Bangladesh to ‘protect’ democracy after revolution

By AFP
October 29, 2024

UN rights chief Volker Türk (C) looks at graffiti on the walls of Bangladesh's Dhaka University marking the uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina - Copyright AFP Abdul Goni

UN rights chief Volker Turk on Tuesday urged students at Bangladesh’s Dhaka University, the heart of the uprising that toppled autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, to “protect” democracy to end cycles of revenge.

“Democracy is one of the most powerful ideas ever dreamed up by humanity… but it is also fragile — something that we must nurture and protect –- particularly in its earliest stages,” Turk said in an address.

“I know you are aware of the pitfalls that led other pro-democracy movements into a dead end.”

Tens of thousands demonstrated on campus and in the surrounding neighbourhood as protests against job quotas morphed into a nationwide struggle to end Hasina’s 15 years of iron-fisted rule.

More than 700 people were killed, many in a brutal police crackdown, before Hasina fled to India by helicopter on August 5.

Several of the top student protest leaders were enrolled at the university, some of whom are now part of the cabinet of the interim government which is led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

Hasina’s rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents. A Bangladeshi court this month issued an arrest warrant for the ousted leader.

– ‘Pivotal time’ –

Turk told students they had “shown great courage in standing up for justice and equality”, and that he was honoured to address them “at a pivotal time, and in a symbolic place”.

But he also warned them of the risks as they support the huge challenge of restoring democratic institutions.

“Beware of the idea that the ends justify the means,” Turk added.

“The process through which you seek change is just as crucial as the outcome. Strengthening institutions can be more important in the long term than tearing them down.”

Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is on a two-day visit to Dhaka to meet with Yunus, the chief justice, army chief and other leaders, his office said.

“Inequality, cycles of revenge and retribution, marginalisation, corruption, and gross human rights violations must be consigned to the past. There must be no repetition, no going back. The present and future belong to equality, to justice.”

Dozens of Hasina’s allies have been arrested, while the last known whereabouts of the 77-year-old fugitive was a military airbase near India’s capital New Delhi.

“We cannot allow a vicious new cycle of reprisals and revenge to repeat itself”, Turk added.

“The pursuit of justice must also go beyond trials of those responsible, and address the root causes to achieve the broader social transformation to which you aspire”.

Golden statue erected in swing state

 mocks Trump by honoring 'lifetime

 of sexual assault'

Sarah K. Burris

RAW STORY
October 30, 2024 

Another monument has been erected mocking former President Donald Trump — this time in a key battleground state — following a series of activism art installations throughout the United States.

The third "monument" appeared Wednesday in Philadelphia and is a golden statue of Trump standing behind a statue of a partially nude woman. Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery has been following the statues as they pop up.

The nude woman statue is entitled “Maja,” by Gerhard Marcks installed in 2021, the Washington Post reported.

The plaque reads: "In Honor Of A Lifetime Of Sexual Assault," and it cites Trump's "grab em by the p---y" comment he made on a hot microphone during a 2005 segment for "Access Hollywood." Trump bragged he couldn't control himself and would force himself on women, kissing them. He then said he could grab the women because he was a "celebrity and they let you do it!"

The same statue also reportedly appeared near another nude sculpture in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday. A MAGA fan and local candidate has already removed and damaged the statue, reported KOIN news.


Additionally, a statue mocked Jan. 6 insurrectionists and another highlighted the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Donald Trump calling them "very fine people." Both were raised in Washington, D.C.

A group called "Civic Crafting" filled out the permit with the National Parks Service to erect the monuments in Washington.

See the photos below:

ARBITRARY WITH NO APPEAL

Experts pummel Supreme Court's 'wrongheaded' decision on Virginia voter purge

Sarah K. Burris

RAW STORY
October 30, 2024 

U.S. Supreme Court associate justices Clarence Thomas (l) and Samuel Alito (c), with Chief Justice John Roberts.(Raw Story photo illustration via photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Supreme Court made what may seem like a minor decision about a small group of Virginia voters, but legal experts are sounding the alarm.

After the court gave Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin the green light to pursue his purge of the voter rolls, these experts warned that this ruling ends a long-standing precedent not to have changes within 90 days of the election.

Concern among voting rights advocates is that the purge was already found to be inaccurate. The GOP lawmakers who support it have claimed that it was using recent data from the Department of Motor Vehicles to purge non-citizens accurately. Actual citizens who can prove their citizenship have been caught up in the purge, leaving them with last-minute hoops to jump through to cast a ballot

Also Read: The Purge is real: Inside the GOP's 2024 playbook to disenfranchise voters

"This only affects a small number of people but is a wrongheaded decision in light of clear federal law," said election law expert Marc Elias.

"The truth is, existing methods for ensuring only citizens register to vote are adequate. Voters have to certify they are citizens when they register. States check before they are added to the rolls," wrote former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance.

"Law Dork" Chris Geidner noted that all of the lower courts agreed that the purge was likely illegal under federal law.

Technically, he explained, the High Court is "staying the injunction pending Virginia’s appeal of the case." He remarks that the ruling "contains no explanation of why the justices took this action."

"This is a disturbing shadow docket decision, up there with the 2021 shadow docket decision allowing Texas’s S.B. 8 vigilante abortion law to go into effect despite Roe," he also said.

"This order is bad not only because of what it will do to voters in Virginia but also because of the mischief that it will invite against voters nationwide," lamented civil rights lawyer Matthew Segal on X.

Harvard Law School Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos agreed in an X post, "Assuming the Court's decision was driven by Purcell, this situation shows why Purcell shouldn't always be dispositive. Federal law says that voter purges shouldn't happen close to an election. If a state violates that law, Purcell shouldn't immunize the state's illegal action."

FLORDIA IN PLAY

'Alex Jones turn you down?' GOP senator trashed for cozying up to 'toxic' MAGA influencer

Kathleen Culliton
October 30, 2024 

FILE PHOTO: Laura Loomer arrives ahead of former U.S. President Donald Trump's debate with Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 10, 2024. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

A Republican senator faced significant backlash Wednesday after he first disavowed racist jokes told at former President Donald Trump's recent rally then promoted his on a podcast with a white nationalist.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who is running for reelection this year, promoted his appearance on Laura Loomer's show just days after condemning comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's slur on Puerto Ricans, whose nation he called a "floating island of garbage."

"Excited to talk about the Senate GOP Leader race soon with [Loomer]!" wrote Scott. "We need Republicans in Washington to act like Republicans again. Looking forward to the conversation!"

Replied independent journalist Aaron Rupar, "Did Alex Jones turn you down or what?"

Loomer is the controversial MAGA activist who has spread conspiracy theories about the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, pronounced herself a "proud Islamophobe" and addressed white nationalists at a 2022 conference during which she declared she was a "white advocate," reports show.

When Trump last month summoned Loomer onto his personal plane and brought her to a Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony in New York City, and at the time it sparked outrage on the right.

And when Scott promoted his appearance on her podcast Tuesday night, he faced similar condemnation from policy experts, political commentators and even a former Trump aide.

"So Rick Scott condemned the anti-Puerto Rican bigotry at the MSG rally, but is going to appear with Laura Loomer, a self avowed white nationalist and Islamophobe on her podcast," wrote Tim Wise, a senior fellow at the African American Policy Forum.

"Lets you know Scott's concerns: it's not that he minds racism. He just needs Puerto Rican votes."

ALSO READ: 'Chosen by God': A new kind of convert is making the pilgrimage to see Trump

Mark Jacob, a former Chicago Tribune editor, urged Florida voters not to validate Scott's campaign tactics with their votes on Nov. 5 — and threw support behind his Democratic challenger instead.

"Here’s Republican Sen. Rick Scott legitimizing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who said 9/11 was 'an inside job' and suggested the Parkland school shooting was a hoax," he wrote. "Please, Florida. Vote Scott out. Vote Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in."

Christopher Mathias, senior reporter for the Huffington Post, noted Scott's promotion came within days of condemning Hinchcliffe.

"Less than 48 hrs after distancing self from the racist Puerto Rico remark at MSG, Scott promotes Loomer," wrote Matthias, "who calls herself 'proud Islamophobe' & 'pro-white nationalism' who 'really does believe in IQ science' & called Ilhan Omar 'black dog' & said Somalis are 'inbred' & 'low IQ.'"


Mathias' HuffPo colleague Igor Bobic also highlighted a racist joke Loomer herself made last month that drew criticism from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as well as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Thom Tillis (R-NC).

"Loomer said if Harris wins the election 'the White House will smell like curry,' drawing condemnations from Graham, Tillis, & even MTG," Bobic wrote. "Graham called her “toxic” and urged Trump to keep his distance."

Trump's former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews posited Scott's decision to appear on the show reflected his desperation to hold onto his Senate seat.

"Imagine wanting power so badly that you’re willing to debase yourself like this," Matthews wrote. "Feeling the need to kowtow to Laura Loomer is disqualifying for someone seeking to lead the Senate GOP."

In Tennessee, the despair of gun control advocates

Agence France-Presse
October 30, 2024 

Nashville residents Melissa Alexander and Mary Joyce advocated for gun control restrictions as leaders of the 'Covenant Moms' group, founded in the aftermath of a school shooting at Covenant High School on March 27, 2023 (SETH HERALD/AFP)

After a deadly school shooting in the southern U.S. state of Tennessee last year, Democratic voters, lawmakers, and even some Republican mothers called for stricter gun control laws.

But the state assembly blocked any progress, dashing hopes for change in a state that deeply values firearm rights.

"We're single-issue voters, with guns being the number one issue," said Melissa Alexander, a real estate agent, gun owner, and mother who takes pride in her son's hunting skills.

Despite grassroots advocacy by liberals, conservative resistance to gun control has deflated the issue to the point that it barely registers in the US presidential campaign.

Democrats have often championed gun reform -- but this time around even Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, has emphasized her gun ownership in a country seemingly numbed to mass shootings.

"I thought March 27th (2023) would be the tipping point for gun violence and safety," said Justin Pearson, a local Democratic assemblyman.





That day, a shooter killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School, a Nashville elementary school.

"But I also thought we would do something as a country after Sandy Hook," Pearson added, referring to the massacre that claimed 26 lives, including 20 young children.

The Tennessee shooting was at "a private Christian conservative school, so I did have a modicum of hope that this would be the threshold for them to really do something different -- and they failed," he said.

- 'Make it worse' -

Shortly after the tragedy, Pearson and another Black elected official were expelled from the local legislature for protesting inside the institution -- an extremely rare punishment.

A third white Democrat, who also advocated for stricter gun laws, was spared.


Both expelled lawmakers were swiftly reelected, but the tragedy failed to produce any legislation restricting firearm access.

Instead, a new law passed this year allowed teachers to carry weapons.

"We did everything possible to prevent it," said Alexander, who, alongside Mary Joyce, leads the 'Covenant Moms,' a group of school mothers who mobilized after the shooting.

Their press conferences and meetings with elected officials, including the Tennessee governor, proved futile.

"We were warned they could make it worse," Joyce said, referring to threats to make teacher carrying arms mandatory.

She believes that her daughter, who lost part of her hearing during the attack, owes her survival to her teacher, who kept the children quiet in the classroom.


"Expecting teachers to confront a machine-gun-wielding assailant with a pistol is ridiculous, dangerous, and irresponsible," she said.

Their only consolation is that no school district has implemented the measure so far, said Alexander.

Despite the stubbornness of their elected representatives, the two women -- who come from conservative families and had little prior political involvement -- are determined to continue campaigning for gun control laws compatible with the US constitution's Second Amendment on the right to own a gun.


Speaking publicly on this "polarizing subject" feels "scary", Alexander admitted.

Joyce was more direct: "I don't want to get shot."

- 'Money and power' -


Changing gun laws, let alone attitudes to firearms, won't be easy.

"There are certain neighborhoods in and around Nashville where people are afraid to put up 'Harris for President' signs," said Carrie Russell of Vanderbilt University.

The political science professor explained that in Tennessee, as elsewhere, the Republican Party has secured a "super majority" through National Rifle Association funding and strategic redistricting.


"It comes down to money and power," she noted. "Unseating well-financed Republicans who control these power levers is nearly impossible."

Multiple local Republican lawmakers declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

"I feel like I'm doomed. I've been ready to throw in the towel for the last two years," said Clemmie Greenlee, founder of Nashville Peacemakers and Mothers Over Murder.

Since losing her adult son to gun violence in 2003, she has tirelessly supported dozens of bereaved families.

Tennessee maintains one of the nation's highest gun death rates, with firearms being the leading cause of death among youth.

The state's permissive laws allow 18-year-olds to purchase assault rifles three years before they can legally buy alcohol, often without background checks.

The state also lacks "red flag" laws to temporarily remove weapons from potentially dangerous individuals.

And at the federal level, for Greenlee, the situation is even more locked in.

"I don't expect anything from Kamala (Harris) or Donald (Trump)," she said. "Gun violence, they don't even talk about it."

A pizza shop owner is sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for threatening workers with deportation



Stavros Papantoniadis, owner of Stash’s Pizza, a Boston sanitary grade certificate after inspection by the Health Division of the Inspectional Services Department on Nov 2, 2016, in Boston. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, File)

BY STEVE LEBLANC
 October 28, 2024

BOSTON (AP) — The owner of two Boston-area pizza shops convicted of forced labor for using physical violence and threats of reprisal or deportation against employees living in the country illegally has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Stavros Papantoniadis, 49, of Westwood — the owner of Stash’s Pizza, a Massachusetts pizzeria chain — was sentenced Friday in federal court to 102 months in prison, one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $35,000 fine.

Papantoniadis forced or attempted to force six victims — five men and one woman — to work for him and comply with excessive workplace demands through violent physical abuse; threats of violence and serious harm; and repeated threats to report the victims to immigration authorities for deportation, according to prosecutors.

In June, a jury convicted Papantoniadis of three counts of forced labor and three counts of attempted forced labor. Papantoniadis has remained in custody since his arrest in March 2023.

A lawyer for Papantoniadis said he’s pursuing a new trial and an appeal.

“Although the judge saw fit to sentence him slightly beneath the guidelines, we are disappointed in the length of the sentence,” Carmine Lepore said in an email. “The sentencing guidelines applicable to this case are more appropriate for human traffickers and sexual servitude defendants.”

Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said Papantoniadis was driven by greed to prey on his workers.

“Labor trafficking exploits the vulnerable through fear and intimidation, all in pursuit of the almighty buck. That is what Stavros Papantoniadis did when he violated the rights of the people working in his restaurants,” Levy said.

“He deliberately hired foreign nationals who lacked authorization to work in the United States and then turned their lack of immigration status against them, threatening them with deportation and violence to keep them under his control,” he added.

Papantoniadis thinly staffed his pizza shops, and deliberately hired workers without immigration status to work behind the scenes, for 14 or more hours per day and as many as seven days per week, investigators said.

To control the undocumented workers, he made them believe that he would physically harm them or have them deported and monitored them with surveillance cameras. When Papantoniadis learned that one victim planned to quit, he choked him, causing that victim to flee the pizza shop.

When another worker tried to leave and drive away from one of Papantoniadis’ pizza shops, Papantoniadis chased the victim down Route 1 in Norwood, Massachusetts, and falsely reported the victim to the local police to pressure the victim to return to work at the pizza shop, prosecutors said.

Europe’s human rights watchdog urges Cyprus to let migrants stuck in UN buffer zone seek asylum


A refugee man stands in front of tent at a camp inside the U.N controlled buffer zone that divide the north part of the Turkish occupied area from the south Greek Cypriots at Aglantzia area in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Aug, 9, 2024.

 (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)

BY MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS
 October 30, 2024

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A senior official with Europe’s top human rights watchdog has urged the government of ethnically divided Cyprus to allow passage to nearly three dozen asylum seekers out of a U.N.-controlled buffer zone where they have been stranded in tents for months.

Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a letter released on Wednesday that despite receiving food, water and other aid, some 35 people, including young children, continue to face “poor living conditions” that make it difficult for them to obtain items such as formula milk and diapers for babies.

The migrants, who come from countries including Syria, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan and Cameroon are stuck in a buffer zone that separates the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north of the Eastern Mediterranean island nation and the Greek Cypriot south where the internationally recognized government is seated.

In a letter addressed to Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, O’Flaherty said the migrants’ prolonged stay in such conditions is likely to affect their mental and physical health, as illustrated by the suicide attempts of two women.

Cyprus breached right of 2 Syrian cousins to seek asylum, European court says

O’Flaherty said he acknowledged the “seriousness and complexity” of Cypriot authorities’ efforts to stem the flow of migrants crossing the buffer zone from north to south to seek asylum.

But he said this doesn’t mean Cypriot authorities can ignore their obligations under international law to offer migrants “effective access to asylum procedures and to adequate reception conditions.”

O’Flaherty’s letter comes a couple of months after the U.N. refugee agency had also urged the Cypriot government to let the migrants seek asylum.

Migrant crossings from the north to the south have dropped precipitously in recent months after Cypriot authorities enacted a series of stringent measures including the installation of cameras and special police patrols along sections of the 180-kilometer (120 mile) long buffer zone.

The Cyprus government ceded control of the buffer zone to U.N. peacekeepers after battle lines stabilized in the wake of a 1974 Turkish invasion that triggered by a coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece. Cypriot authorities have consistently said they would not permit the buffer zone to become a gateway for an illegal migration influx that put “severe strain” on the island’s asylum system.

Earlier this year, Cyprus suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syrian nationals after granting international protection to 14,000 Syrians in the last decade.

Christodoulides underscored the point to O’Flaherty in a reply letter, saying that Cypriot authorities are obligated to do their utmost to crack down on people-smuggling networks moving people from mainland Turkey to northern Cyprus and then to the south.

It’s understood that all the migrants have Turkish residency permits and arrived in the north aboard scheduled flights.

The Cypriot president said authorities will “make every effort” in accordance with international law “to prevent the normalization of irregular crossings” through the buffer zone.

Regarding the stranded asylum seekers, Christodoulides said the government is offering supplies and healthcare and assured O’Flaherty that “we will resolve this matter within the next few weeks,” without elaborating.

The Cypriot president also defended patrols that marine police vessels conduct in international waters to thwart boat loads of migrants reaching the island by sea. He said those patrols fully comply with international law and rejected allegations that marine police are engaging in seaborne “pushbacks” of migrant boats.

Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Cyprus violated the right of two Syrian nationals to seek asylum in the island nation after keeping them, and more than two dozen other people, aboard a boat at sea for two days before sending them back to Lebanon.

O’Flaherty asked Christodoulides to ensure that all Cypriot seaborne operations abide by the obligations flowing from the court ruling and to carry out independent probes into allegations of “unlawful summary returns and of ill-treatment” of migrants on land and at sea.

2 journalists killed in separate incidents in Mexico within 24 hours




Relative and friends of slain journalist Mauricio Solis stand next to his coffin during his wake in Uruapan, Mexico, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. 

(AP Photo/Armando Solis)

Loved ones and colleagues mourned Wednesday a murdered journalist whose Facebook news page covered the violent western Mexico state of Michoacan. Mauricio Solís of the online journal Minuto por Minuto was shot to death by gunmen late Tuesday, just moments after he conducted a sidewalk interview with the mayor of the city of Uruapan. State prosecutors said a second person was wounded in the shooting 

(AP/Armando Solís)

Relative and friends of slain journalist Mauricio Solis carry his coffin during his wake in Uruapan, Mexico, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Armando Solis)

 October 30, 2024


MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.N. human rights office in Mexico said Wednesday journalists in Mexico need more protection, after gunmen killed a man whose Facebook news page covered the violent western Mexico state of Michoacan.

Then less than 24 hours later an entertainment reporter in the western city of Colima was killed inside a restaurant she owned.

Journalist Mauricio Solís of the news page Minuto por Minuto was shot to death late Tuesday just moments after he conducted a sidewalk interview with the mayor of the city of Uruapan (ooh-roo-WAH-pan). State prosecutors said a second person was wounded in the shooting.

Solís had just finished an interview on the street outside city hall with Mayor Carlos Manzo. Manzo told local media he had walked away and “two minutes later, I think, and just a matter of meters away, we heard gunshots, four or five gunshots.”

“We sought cover because we thought the attack was aimed at us,” Manzo said. “After a few minutes we found out that Mauricio was the one they attacked.”

Manzo said he could not rule out a connection between the interview and the killing.

The U.N. rights office said Solís was at least the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year. It said he had previously reported security problems related to his work. His Facebook page reported on community events and the drug cartel violence that has wracked the city.

“His killing is a wake-up call to defend the right to information and freedom of expression in Mexico,” the office wrote.

An increasing number of the journalists killed in Mexico have been self-employed and reported for local Facebook and online news sites.

Uruapan is the nearest large city to Michoacan’s avocado-growing region, and it has been the scene of drug cartel extortions and turf battles between gangs. The cartels demand protection money from local avocado and lime orchards, cattle ranches and almost any other business.

Solís was reporting on a suspicious fire at a local market just before the shooting. Gangs have sometimes burned businesses that refuse to pay extortion demands.

Then on Wednesday afternoon, entertainment reporter Patricia Ramírez González was found with serious injuries inside her Colima restaurant and died at the scene, according to the Colima state prosecutor’s office.

Local media said Ramírez, who was better known as Paty Bunbury, published a blog on local entertainment and was a contributor to a Colima newspaper.

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned both killings and called for transparent investigations.
___

The owners of a New Zealand volcano that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people, appeal their conviction

HOW DO YOU OWN A VOLCANO?!

 In photo provided by Michael Schade, tourists on a boat look at the eruption of the volcano on White Island, New Zealand, Dec. 9, 2019. (Michael Schade via AP, File)

FILE - Plumes of steam rise above White Island off the coast of Whakatane, New Zealand, on Dec. 11, 2019, following a volcanic eruption on Dec. 9. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File)

BY CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-MCLAY
 October 29, 2024


WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The owners of an island volcano in New Zealand that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people, launched an appeal on Tuesday against their criminal conviction for violating safety laws, arguing that tour operators — rather than their company — were responsible for the safety of visitors to Whakaari, also known as White Island.

Whakaari Management, a company owned by brothers Andrew, Peter and James Buttle, was found guilty last October of a charge brought by New Zealand’s workplace safety regulator of failing to protect visitors to the island. It was ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines and restitutions to victims of the volcanic eruption, who were tourists from a cruise ship, and their local guides.

The company in March filed an appeal. On Tuesday, lawyer Rachael Reed told the High Court in Auckland that the trial judge had erred when he ruled the volcano’s owners were the managers or controllers of a workplace under the law — and were therefore responsible for mitigating health and safety risks to anyone present.

The company only granted access to the volcano, Reed said, and expected the tour operators to manage the safety of tourists there.

Indonesia’s Marapi volcano erupts, spewing ash and hot clouds

“Just like any landowner, it had the ability to and did grant the right of access to the land through licenses. That is what it did,” she told the court, referencing the company. “It did not run the tours. It did not direct or supervise the tours.”

White Island, the tip of an undersea volcano also known by its Māori name Whakaari, was a popular tourist destination before the eruption. There were 47 tourists and tour guides — mostly from the U.S. and Australia — on the island when superheated steam blew, killing some people instantly and leaving others with agonizing burns.

The disaster drew attention to the natural hazards around which much of New Zealand’s adventure tourism industry operates and prompted tighter laws for tour companies after survivors of the eruption said they had not been told the active volcano was dangerous before their guided walk to the crater.

After a three-month trial last year, a judge found the company guilty of health and safety failings in the period before the eruption. In his ruling, Judge Evangelos Thomas said Whakaari Management had failed to undertake a risk assessment despite being aware of an eruption three years earlier.

Judge Thomas said the company should have sought expert advice about the dangers and either stopped the tours entirely or put controls in place. He dismissed a second charge against the company.

Charges were brought by New Zealand’s workplace safety regulator against 13 organizations and people, including the owners’ company. Some pleaded guilty, including three companies that operated helicopter tours, one that operated boat tours, a scenic flight operator and the New Zealand scientific agency GNS Science. Charges against others were dropped.

In the three-day appeal this week, Justice Simon Moore is expected to hear further submissions from lawyers for Whakaari Management before arguments from the regulator. Moore told the court that any error found by the trial judge must rise to the level of a miscarriage of justice for the appeal to be successful.

CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY
Graham-McLay is an Associated Press reporter covering regional and national stories about New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands by putting them in a global context. She is based in Wellington.