Assembly of First Nations' new chief won't 'pull any punches'
Anja Karadeglija 

RoseAnne Archibald, the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, is the first woman to be elected to the role — and looks likely to present a stronger voice advocating for First Nations issues with the federal government.

© Provided by National Post Incoming national head of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald,

Asked how her approach would differ from that of predecessor Perry Bellegarde, Archibald told reporters Friday she takes a dual perspective to dealing with governments.


“I look at the person who is in that position, and I see them as a human being. And I know many people watched as I created a positive relationship between a Conservative government and First Nations in Ontario. And that comes from a place of mutual respect.”

But that won’t stop her from holding governments to account. “You can ask the Ontario government about the many times we have been at loggerheads,” Archibald said.

As national chief, Archibald will lobby the federal government on behalf of more than 900,000 First Nations members. She won the AFN election Thursday evening after two days and five rounds of voting, beating out six other candidates.

Archibald received 205 votes on the fifth ballot, nearly 10 per cent shy of the 60 per cent majority required for a win. The votes are cast by chiefs or their proxies, not individual members of First Nations. She won the election after Muskowekwan First Nation chief Reginald Bellerose, who received 35.5 per cent of the vote, withdrew from the race before the sixth ballot.

“I think that RoseAnne is going to be a very strong national chief in terms of speaking out and advocating on behalf of First Nations across the country,” independent MP and former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said.

“There is a definite need to press the federal government in a way that perhaps has not been reflected in the last number of years.”

Wilson-Raybould described Archibald as a strong advocate, someone who is outspoken, forthright and doesn’t pull any punches.

“I think she’ll come out of the gate in a gallop, which she needs to,” Wilson-Raybould added. “There’s a lot of challenges, both internally within the AFN organization and certainly an enormous amount of issues that she’s going to have to work on.”

Archibald, being the first woman to serve as AFN national chief, marks another first in a career of them. At 23, she became the first woman and youngest chief of Taykwa Tagamou Nation, and in 2018 was the first woman to be elected as Ontario regional chief.

Archibald said her election is a victory for all women, and it’s “absolutely essential that women and girls everywhere can see themselves represented at the Assembly of First Nations in a leadership role.”

But while her gender is important, it’s not the reason she was elected, she added.

“It is the 31 years of experience at every political level that has gotten me here. Women are worthy, women are capable, women are highly skilled.”

In addition to posts as deputy grand chief for Nishnawbe Aski Nation and grand chief for Mushkegowuk Council – she was also the first woman and youngest individual in both jobs – Archibald ran a consulting business for nine years.

Veldon Coburn, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies, described outgoing chief Bellegarde and his predecessor, Shawn Atleo, as “milquetoast” politicians, who “really didn’t have the sort of firebrand that we had hoped for.”

“And then you actually have someone who’s personally charismatic and exciting like RoseAnne Archibald, and who has a lot of integrity, too. So that’s a little bit different.”

While Bellegarde avoided conflict with the federal government, Archibald “will come out and be very blunt about things and actually present solutions as well to the problems, so I think that difference will be quite noticeable,” Coburn said.

She’s done that in her previous roles, Coburn said, adding that her experience on chiefs’ committees that study issues in-depth means she has a deep understanding of critical issues such as housing and water infrastructure.

Bellegarde and Atleo led the AFN after the Idle No More movement began in 2012, “which was probably the most explosive Indigenous movement in the last century … and really they allowed that momentum to fizzle.” Archibald, on the other hand, hasn’t shied away from criticizing organizations, including the AFN, Coburn noted.

Archibald herself has faced criticism in the form of bullying and harassment allegations. An independent report from May looking into those claims for the AFN said seven individuals didn’t file formal complaints because they feared workplace reprisals, according to the CBC. The report didn’t include details about the allegations.

Asked about the allegations Friday, Archibald said she couldn’t comment on a confidential report, but that the allegations were reprisals for her calling for an independent review of harassment and bullying of women and two-spirited, LGBTQQIA+ people at the AFN. She said she was in favour of implementing a whistleblower policy at the organization, and promised to make AFN a “safe, welcoming and healthy space.”

© The Canadian Press Former AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde at a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa in February 2020.

Coburn said it’s “very important” for the AFN to have strong leadership now, given the recent announcements that hundreds of unmarked graves had been discovered at the sites of three former residential schools. That includes the remains of 215 children at a former residential school site in Kamloops, B.C., up to 751 remains near a residential school at Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan, and 182 unmarked graves near Cranbrook, B.C.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend church-run residential schools funded by the government that operated from the 1880s until the 1990s. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found in its 2015 report children in residential schools died at far higher rates than children in the general population. It said the school system, which separated Indigenous children from their families with the aim of assimilating them and breaking their links to their culture and identity, was a central element of a government policy of “cultural genocide.”

“The recovery of our children at former residential schools is a priority. There must be truth before reconciliation,” she said. “I will support and advocate for resources for ongoing healing from intergenerational trauma from colonization, particularly residential schools.”

Archibald said her next step will be to review the goals she set out in her platform with leaders including national and regional chiefs, with more detailed work plans to come. She also plans to establish a post-pandemic recovery plan for First Nations, and will be coming out with a 100-day plan.

Archibald said other priorities will be pushing the government to put together an action plan to implement all 94 calls to action put forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The implementation of the action plan put forward by the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls is also a priority.

Systemic racism in the justice system and in the health care system, and the climate change crisis, are other priorities that need to addressed, she said.

Archibald promised to “uphold and defend and protect First Nations sovereignty and jurisdiction” through the implementation and recognition of treaty rights in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Bill C-15, which says the Canadian government must ensure its laws are consistent with UNDRIP, became law last month.

“The new national chief is going to, I suspect, work with our nations across the country to ensure that bill is not just something that the government can sit back and say ‘We’ve done what we need to do,’” Wilson-Raybould said.

It will be necessary to press the federal government “to change laws, change policies and change the practices of the federal government in order to create the space for Indigenous nations to rebuild. So I think she’s going to be a strong advocate on that.”

New National Chief RoseAnne Archibald pledges to make AFN more inclusive, transparent


OTTAWA — In her home community of Taykwa Tagamou Nation in northeastern Ontario, surrounded by family and friends, RoseAnne Archibald was about to deliver the oath of office as newly elected national chief of the Assembly of First Nations Thursday when she suddenly began to giggle.

The solemn ceremony, held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic, was interrupted by messages popping up on her smartphone, which was being used to broadcast her oath and victory speech across the country.

"I'm getting too many text messages from people, it's interfering with my oath of office," Archibald said as she laughed, handing her phone to an aide so she wouldn't have to hold it herself while delivering her remarks.

Archibald's authenticity in that moment reflects the kind of leader she says she wants to be as the first female leader of the AFN, an advocacy organization representing 634 First Nations.

She is pledging to hold governments' feet to the fire in making sure the needs and priorities of First Nations people in Canada are at the forefront of national dialogue and action.

But the new leader also harshly criticized the way the AFN has been run in the past, and is promising to make the organization more inclusive and transparent.

She also says she will approach this transformational work in her own kind and respectful way.

"I have the ability to create space that is respectful and kind to other leaders and at the same time, hold them to account. I'm holding two spaces within me," she said at a news conference Friday.

"I know that with that heart-centred approach, together with any government we can move the yardstick, we can create quantum leaps of change and that's my plan."

Archibald secured her electoral victory late Thursday after two days and five full rounds of voting. The race was about go to a sixth ballot before the last of Archibald's six rivals for the job, Reginald Bellerose, chief of Muskowekwan First Nation in Saskatchewan, conceded.

As the first woman to hold the job of national chief, Archibald says it has been a long and often bumpy road to get here.

The secretariat for the AFN, which oversees the business and operations of the organization, is still also called the 'National Indian Brotherhood,' she noted when asked why it's taken so long for a woman to assume leadership of the AFN.

"It's things like that create a feeling that there isn't a place for women," she said. The negative experiences of national female politicians such as Jody Wilson-Raybould and Catherine McKenna can also often discourage women from seeking higher office, she added.

"These attacks on women don't create safe spaces for women. But it's changing," she said. "It's important that 80 per cent of the chiefs across Canada are men and they elected me. And that, to me, speaks to the change that is happening: that our brothers understand the importance of creating space."

Over the next 100 days, Archibald plans to focus on key issues such as unmarked burial sites at former residential schools, the national action plan on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and fighting systemic racism in the health and justice systems.

She also plans to prioritize climate change's effects on Indigenous communities — such as the wildfires ravaging First Nations in British Columbia — and will work with governments and regional chiefs on a post-pandemic recovery plan for First Nations.

Asked about an internal investigation the AFN launched into allegations of harassment against her earlier this year, Archibald said she couldn't discuss specifics because of confidentiality.

But she did say she was never interviewed as part of that probe. She also said she believes it was relating to her having raised concerns about allegations of harassment and bullying of women, LGBTQ and two-spirit people at the organization — something she says will not happen under her watch.

"I knew that because I spoke out that there would be retaliation … but I kept walking forward because I believe in the truth," she said.

"I felt like a whistleblower when I brought those issues forward."

Because of this, Archibald says she supports a whistleblower policy for the AFN. She also plans to address concerns she's heard about the AFN being "opaque" in financial matters.

"I ran for national chief to bring better, more inclusive governance to the AFN, one that puts an emphasis on creating safe and healthy workplaces for all people, protected and respected, no matter what."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2021.

Teresa Wright, The Canadian Press

New national chief calls for reparations for Indigenous people

Ryan Patrick Jones, CBC

The newly-elected leader of the largest advocacy organization for First Nations in Canada has thrown her support behind the idea of reparations for Indigenous people.

Speaking at a virtual press conference one day after being elected national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald said settler colonialism has had dire effects on Indigenous people in Canada — effects that continue to this day and demand redress.

"Reparations are an essential part of the journey on reconciliation," Archibald said. "Our communities have had longstanding negative impacts as a result of colonization."


Archibald was responding to a media question about an report released last week by Sen. Patrick Brazeau, a member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation in Quebec, that examined the history of the relationship between the federal government and Indigenous people.

In a subsequent interview with online news site iPolitics, Brazeau said his report highlighted a history of "broken promises" and "Band-Aid solutions" to First Nations issues, and that reconciliation must include a "process of reparations."
Reparations should go beyond existing settlements: Archibald

The federal government has set up a number of mechanisms to compensate Indigenous people who experienced specific forms of discrimination or abuse.

The 2007 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement set up a "common experience payment" for all students who attended the government-sanctioned institutions, along with an "independent assessment process" for people who experienced sexual and physical abuse.

So far, those funds have paid out over $4.8 billion to residential school survivors.

A separate nationwide class action lawsuit brought to compensate survivors of federally-operated Indian Day Schools resulted in a settlement with the federal government. That settlement offers former students a range of compensation between $10,000 and $200,000, based on abuse suffered while attending the schools.

And a class action settlement agreement with Sixties Scoop survivors, signed in November 2017, set aside $750 million to compensate First Nations and Inuit children who were removed from their homes and placed with non-Indigenous foster or adoptive parents between 1951 and 1991, and lost their cultural identities as a result.

Archibald said reparations for Indigenous people must go beyond these existing settlements.

"That's only one piece of reparations," said Archibald. "We need those reparations to happen not only with individuals, but communities and nations."

While Archibald didn't specify the exact form such reparations should take, Indigenous people often argue it should go beyond money and include returning control over land that was taken from them.

CBC requested comment from the federal government but has not received a response.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said his party is open to the idea of reparations.

"We know that the Government of Canada has stolen the lives, the culture, the identity, and the future of Indigenous people across Canada," Singh said in a media statement. "We must listen to those hurt the most by colonization and take action to build a new pathway towards reconciliation."

Jamie Schmale, Conservative critic for Crown-Indigenous relations, said his party recognizes that more work needs to be done to address the harmful effects residential schools have had on survivors.

"We also know that the path to reconciliation must be walked in partnership with Indigenous peoples," Schmale said in a media statement. "Trudeau has demonstrated time after time that he has no plans and only hollow words for Canada's Indigenous peoples."

Schmale said Conservatives have called on the Liberal government to take immediate action to address the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions' calls to action that deal with missing children and those who died at residential schools.

Indigenous women - RoseAnne Archibald and Mary Simon - rise to top political positions


(ANNews) – 2021 has been a tumultuous time. On top of navigating through a pandemic, Canada has been forced to reckon with its history of genocide as multiple gravesites have been discovered at formal residential schools across the country — with the amount of unmarked graves being above 1,500.

However, the year is also historic for positive reasons too as two Indigenous women have risen to highly influential political positions this month.

Mary Simon appointed as Canada’s Governor General

On July 6, 2021 the first-ever Indigenous person to serve as Canada’s Governor General was appointed as the Queen’s representative.

Mary Simon is an Inuk woman from Kangiqsualujjuaq in the Nunavik region of Quebec.

She will outrank Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the second-highest federal office in Canada — after only the Queen herself.

After announcing the Queen’s approval of the appointment, Prime Minister Trudeau, said, “Ms. Simon has dedicated her life to advancing social, economic, and human rights issues for Canadian Inuit and Indigenous peoples, and I am confident that she will serve Canadians and promote our shared values with dedication and integrity.”

“Through this appointment, we are ensuring that Canada is represented by someone who exemplifies the very best of our country.”

Simon has previously served as the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a non-profit organization in Canada that represents over 65,000 Inuk people across the country.

She was also Canada’s first Inuk ambassador in Denmark and for circumpolar affairs.

“I am honoured, humbled and ready to be Canada’s first Indigenous Governor General,” said Simon. “I can confidently say that my appointment is an historic and inspirational moment for Canada and an important step forward on the long path towards reconciliation.”

Her election comes after an hiatus during which the position remained empty for several months. The vacancy was due to the January 21 resignation of the previous Governor General, Julie Payette, after allegations of bullying were brought to light last year.

RoseAnne Archibald elected as National AFN Chief

On July 8, 2021 the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) concluded their election for the new National Chief.

RoseAnne Archibald, from the Taykwa Tagamou Nation in Northeastern Ontario, has been elected to the position and is the very first woman to hold the honour in the organization’s 50 year history.

The AFN is a nation advocacy organization that represents more than 900,000 First Nations people in 634 communities across the country.

Archibald was elected after her competitor, Muskowekwan First Nation Chief Reginald Bellerose, conceded the election following the fifth round of voting.

“The AFN made ‘her’-story today,” said Archibald.

This is not the first time Archibald has broken barriers however. She was the first woman and youngest chief elected in her home nation at 23 years old — she later went on to become the first woman and youngest deputy Grand Chief for Nishnawbe-Aski Nation in Ontario.

“Today is a victory and you can tell all the women in your life that the glass ceiling has bene broken. I thank all of the women who punched that ceiling before me and made a crack. You are an inspiration to me,” concluded the AFN National Chief.

Jacob Cardinal, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alberta Native News

As allies accuse Ethiopia's Abiy Ahmed of atrocities in Tigray, Canada stands back
Evan Dyer

© Reuters Ethiopian government soldiers and prisoners of war in military uniforms walk through the streets of Mekelle, the capital of Tigray region, Ethiopia on July 2.

"It was worse than a crime. It was a blunder."

The words used to describe one of Napoleon's excesses could well have been uttered by an Ethiopian general in Addis Ababa as the forces sent into the Tigray region by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed were compelled to abandon their posts and retreat.

While atrocities by Ethiopian forces and their Eritrean allies have wrecked the international reputation of Ethiopia's government, their defeat at the hands of Tigrayan rebel forces could ultimately have even bigger consequences.


Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared a "unilateral ceasefire" as his army retreated, but the Tigray Defence Force said it would accept it only with conditions. There were remarkable scenes as the TDF paraded thousands of captured Ethiopian soldiers through the streets of its recaptured capital Mekelle as crowds jeered.

The immediate cause of the defeat was a successful offensive by Tigrayan forces, though pressure from foreign donors may have contributed.

The United States and European Union have turned increasingly against PM Abiy, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2019. Canada has been more forgiving.
Trudeau sought Abiy's support

Since 2016, the first year of the Trudeau government, Ethiopia has been the biggest or second-biggest recipient of Canadian development assistance in the world, and Ottawa has not hinted publicly at any suspension of that aid.

Ethiopia was the first stop when PM Justin Trudeau embarked on a three-continent trip in February 2020. The Liberal government was focused on getting a seat on the UN Security Council and saw Abiy Ahmed as critical to rallying African support for Canada's bid, which ultimately failed.

© AP In this image made from video, an injured victim of an alleged airstrike on a village arrives in an ambulance at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Wednesday, June 23, 2021.

Trudeau hailed Abiy's "contribution to regional peace and security."

That was before Abiy invited neighbouring Eritrea, a hermetic police state run by Isaias Afwerki since 1993, to invade his own nation.
EU suspends aid

The U.S. and UN have accused Abiy's forces of burning crops, stealing or killing livestock, murdering farmers and blockading roads. The UN says Abiy's Eritrean allies are deliberately "starving Tigrayans."

Washington has announced travel sanctions against all officials involved in crimes in Tigray.

The EU suspended aid to Ethiopia's government at the beginning of the year and foreign policy chief Josep Borell left no doubt it was a message to the Ethiopian government about Tigray — "a way of demonstrating our rejection of what is going on out there," which both the EU and the U.S. have described as "ethnic cleansing".

Canada has not used such language or taken punitive steps against the Abiy government, and says it still "stands ready to support the Government of Ethiopia and its people in pursuing a national, inclusive political process."

"We are concerned about what's happening in Ethiopia," Global Affairs Minister Marc Garneau told CBC this week.

"I've spoken to my counterpart, the PM has spoken to his counterpart, and (International Development Minister Karina) Gould ... has spoken to her counterpart, and we've always carried the message that it was extremely important that Ethiopia allow humanitarian aid to be provided in the Tigray region, and as well we've been calling for the withdrawal for a long time of, in particular, Eritrean and Ahmara (Ethiopian regional) troops.

"We are concerned that progress has been extremely slow."
No sanctions, no rebuke

But Global Affairs' Patricia Skinner told CBC that Canada is not yet ready to follow the lead of other countries that have sanctioned Ethiopia.

"Canada is judicious when it chooses to deploy sanctions and is committed to their effective and coordinated use, when appropriate," she said. "Canada will continue to work closely with like-minded governments in considering a broad range of response options."

However, she added, "Canada has re-directed $18 million from its contribution to Ethiopia's national flagship the Productive Safety Nets Program to target communities affected by food insecurity in Tigray."

That project is described as "led by the Government of Ethiopia, with support from the Government of Canada" on a Global Affairs website.

But the program was scheduled to end this year anyway. Its suspension does not represent a rebuke or sanction, GAC officials told CBC.
'Ethnic cleansing'

Muguleta Tedla, a math professor from Windsor, Ontario who chairs the Association of Tigrayan Communities in Canada, said his community appreciates the $41 million in emergency aid Canada has given to Ethiopia, some of it earmarked for Tigray.

He also notes that Ottawa's statements of concern have been markedly less pointed than the condemnations coming from its European and American counterparts.

"We have the feeling that Canada can do more," he told CBC News. "Indirectly, Canada is really supporting the ethnic cleansing happening in Tigray. How could a country regarded so highly support such an act, such a government, such a leader?"

The Ethiopian Embassy did not respond to calls for comment.
Biden, Trudeau approaches miles apart

There has been a striking contrast between the Trudeau government's approach to the conflict and that of the Biden administration.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called PM Abiy during a violent February to urge "immediate, full, and unhindered humanitarian access to prevent further loss of life."

Trudeau also called Abiy a little later that month. Already, videos of massacres by Ethiopian troops were circulating in mainstream media, but Tigray was not at the top of the agenda.

Here's how a statement from the Prime Minister's Office described the call: "Prime Minister Trudeau welcomed efforts to expand access for humanitarian assistance and journalists, to restore critical services and infrastructure, and to protect people. Prime Minister Trudeau reaffirmed Canada's support for ongoing reforms intended to consolidate durable, inclusive peace and democracy in Ethiopia."

On March 10, Blinken told Congress the U.S. had seen "ethnic cleansing" in Tigray.

On March 16, Gould and Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade Minister Mary Ng met with their Ethiopian counterparts for a "clean growth symposium," where they announced a $133 million dollar donation to the Canada-African Development Bank Climate Fund, "an important follow-up to last year's announcement made by Prime Minister Trudeau in Ethiopia". The donation "aims to enhance women's economic rights", said GAC.

Exactly one week later, Abiy admitted that Eritrean troops were in his country, that "there have been rapes of women and looting of properties" and that "atrocities have been committed."

"Battle is destructive, it hurts many," he said.
'A war pact'

The West was naive to fall for Abiy's reformist posturing in the first place, said Tedla, and the settlement with Eritrea that won Abiy his Nobel prize "was not a peace deal. It was a war pact."

Even before the current war broke out in November 2020, human rights groups were pointing out that Abiy's new Ethiopia retained some of the worst features of the old Ethiopia, with ethnic massacres and forced displacements in which security forces sometimes participated.

Tigrayan forces are accused of committing their own war crimes.

The gravest allegations, though, lie at the door of the Ethiopian Army and its Eritrean allies, including mass rape of local women and girls. Figures in Abiy Ahmed's government, including Ethiopia's female president, have acknowledged and condemned the rapes.

Recently a handful of soldiers have been tried and convicted.
'They are going to destroy the Tigrayans'

Abiy Ahmed himself has felt the pressure and sought to defuse it in an oped in February.

"The suffering and deaths that occurred despite our best efforts have caused much distress for me personally, as well as for all peace-loving people here and abroad," he wrote. "We are working, day and night, to deliver necessary supplies to our citizens in Tigray and to those in want in neighbouring provinces, as well as to ensure that human rights are respected and normal lives restored."

The EU's envoy, Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto, travelled to Addis Ababa around the time Abiy was penning his op-ed and said he heard a very different message in private.

"When I met the Ethiopian leadership in February they really used this kind of language, that they are going to destroy the Tigrayans, they are going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years and so forth," he told a committee of the European Parliament last month, making it clear that Abiy Ahmed was part of those discussions.

"It looks for us like ethnic cleansing."

Ethiopia's government has dismissed Haavisto's allegations as a "hallucination of sorts or a lapse in memory of some kind."

But since writing his article, Abiy Ahmed has been forced to admit that the Eritrean Army is operating in the country, after lying about it for several months.

"This must be the most treasonous act of Abiy Ahmed," said Tedla. "Inviting an enemy, a neighbouring country's army, to demolish the infrastructure of Tigray — its own region — and killing all these young men who had nothing to do with politics, raping girls as young as seven."

Tedla said the predictable result is that many Tigrayans, previously willing to live in a federal Ethiopian state, now want nothing less than full independence.

"They must lay a foundation so these atrocities won't happen again."

IF COVID OR BEING ANTI VAX DOESN'T GET 'EM

Diet High in Fat, Fried Foods Linked to Sudden Cardiac Death

 the Southern-style diet was linked to a greater risk of coronary heart disease in the same population.

By Rosalind Stefanac

July 9, 2021 -- A large study shows that eating a diet high in fat, fried foods, processed meats, and sugary drinks is linked to a higher risk of sudden cardiac death, a common cause of death in the U.S.

The research, published June 30 in the Journal of the American Heart Association, examined the dietary patterns of more than 21,000 people 45 years old and older. The research took place over 18 years in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study.

In the study, the dietary patterns were named for the groupings of various foods that dominated the pattern. For example, the "Convenience" pattern relied on mixed dishes, pasta, pizza, Mexican, and Chinese food. The "Plant-based" pattern favored vegetables, fruits, fruit juice, cereal, beans, fish, poultry, and yogurt. The "Sweets" pattern loaded up on added sugars, desserts, chocolate, candy, and sweetened breakfast food. The "Southern" pattern included added fats, fried food, eggs and egg dishes, organ meats, processed meats, and sugar-sweetened beverages, reflecting a culinary pattern observed in the Southeastern U.S. Finally, an "Alcohol and Salad" pattern loaded highly on beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, and salad dressing.

These patterns weren’t mutually exclusive; those who had an affinity for the Southern-style diet also ate fewer plants, for instance.

After adjusting for other factors that may impact risk, the study authors found that those who ate a Southern-style diet showed a trend toward a higher risk of sudden cardiac death at 46% compared to those who ate this kind of diet the least. Meanwhile, the study also revealed that eating a traditional Mediterranean diet was associated with a 26% lower risk for sudden cardiac death.

Lead study author James Shikany, DrPH, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says the results suggest that diet is a factor we have some control over when it comes to reducing the risk of sudden cardiac death.

“I hope this is another piece of the puzzle that will help people make changes,” he says. “So instead of eating meat once or twice a day they’ll cut down to two or three times a week; I like small, incremental changes as those are more likely to last.”

­­­To make lasting changes, however, Stephen Juraschek, MD, PhD, a member of the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee of the Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Council, suggests focusing on two areas.

“We should all think about ways we can increase the number of servings of fruit and vegetables we eat each day,” he says. “We [also] need to cut down our salt exposure by eating more meals at home and avoiding high-salt products or meal preparation with a lot of salt.”

Juraschek says the study results also reveal disparities in dietary patterns that may result from supply chains, access to healthy foods, and cultural practices.

“In order to improve diet population-wide, we need to look beyond individual choices and focus on the population drivers of unhealthy eating,” he says. “Access to healthy fruits and vegetables is a major challenge for rural and urban communities, as well as communities with lower socioeconomic status where processed, comfort foods are often less expensive than fruit and vegetables.”

This latest research is the last of a three-part series exploring links between the Southern-style diet and potential health risks.

In 2018, Shikany and his colleagues reported that adults ages 45 and older with heart disease who had an affinity for the Southern-style diet had a higher risk of death from any cause. Opting for a Mediterranean diet, meanwhile, resulted in a lower risk of death from any cause.

In a 2015 study, the Southern-style diet was linked to a greater risk of coronary heart disease in the same population.

US Black And Latino Communities Often Have Low Vaccination Rates – But Blaming Vaccine Hesitancy Misses The Mark

Jul 9, 2021 By The Conversation

By early July 2021, nearly two-thirds of all U.S. residents 12 years and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine; 55% were fully vaccinated. But uptake varies drastically by region – and it is lower on average among non-white people.

Many blame the relatively lower vaccination rates in communities of color on “vaccine hesitancy.” But this label overlooks persistent barriers to access and lumps together the varied reasons people have for refraining from vaccination. It also places all the responsibility for getting vaccinated on individuals. Ultimately, homogenizing peoples’ reasons for not getting vaccinated diverts attention away from social factors that research shows play a critical role in health status and outcomes.

As medical anthropologists, we take a more nuanced view. Working together as lead site investigators for CommuniVax, a national initiative to improve vaccine equity, we and our teams in Alabama, California and Idaho, along with CommuniVax teams elsewhere in the nation, have documented a variety of stances toward vaccination that simply can’t be cast as “hesitant.”

Limited access hampers vaccination rates

People of color have long suffered an array of health inequities. Accordingly, due to a combination of factors, these communities have experienced higher hospitalization due to COVID-19, higher disease severity upon admission, higher chances for being placed on breathing support and progression to the intensive care unit, and higher rates of death.

CommuniVax data, including some 200 in-depth interviews within such communities, confirm that overall, those who have directly experienced this kind of COVID-19-related trauma, are not hesitant. They dearly want vaccinations. For example, in San Diego’s heavily Latino and very hard-hit “South Region,” COVID-19 vaccine uptake is remarkably high – about 84% as of July 6, 2021.

However, vaccine uptake is far from universal in these communities. This is in part due to access issues that go beyond the well documented challenges of transportation, internet access and skills gaps, and a lack of information on how to get vaccinated. For example, some CommuniVax participants had heard of non-resident white people usurping doses that were meant for communities of color. African American participants, in particular, reported feeling that the Johnson & Johnson vaccines promoted in their communities were the least safe and effective.

Our participant testimony shows that many unvaccinated people are not “vaccine hesitant” but rather “vaccine impeded.” And exclusion can happen not just in a physical sense; providers’ attitudes towards vaccines matter too.

For instance, Donna, a health care worker in Idaho, said, “I chose not to get it because if I were to get sick, I think I would recover mostly or more rapidly.” This kind of attitude by health care providers can have downstream effects. For example, Donna may not encourage vaccination when on duty or to people she knows; some, just observing her choices, may follow suit. Here, what appears as a community’s hesitancy to vaccinate is instead a reflection of vaccine hesitancy within its health care system.

More directly impeded are community members who, like Angela in Idaho, skipped vaccination because she couldn’t risk having a negative reaction that might require intervention. Although a trip to the doctor is a highly unlikely outcome after a vaccine, it remains a concern for some. “My insurance doesn’t cover as much as it possibly, you know, should,” she noted. And we have encountered many reports of undocumented individuals who fear deportation although, according to current laws, immigration status should not be questioned in relation to the vaccine.

Christina, in San Diego, illustrates another type of practical barrier. She cannot get vaccinated, she said, because she has no one to care for her babies should she fall ill with side effects. Her husband, similarly, can’t take time off from his job – “It doesn’t work that way.” Likewise, Carlos – who made sure that his centenarian father got vaccinated – says he can’t take the vaccine himself due to his dad’s deep dementia: “If I took my vaccine and I got sick, he’d be screwed.”
Indifference, resilience and ambivalence

Another segment of unvaccinated people obscured by the “hesitant” label are the “vaccine indifferent.” For various reasons, they remain relatively untouched by the pandemic: COVID-19 just isn’t on their radar. This might include people who are self-employed or working under the table, people living in rural and remote places, and those whose children are not in the public school system.

Such people thus are not consistently connected to COVID-19-related information. This is particularly true if they forego social or news media and socialize with others who do the same, and if there are significant language barriers.

We also learned that, among some of our participants, the initial messaging about prioritizing high-risk groups backfired, leaving some under 65 and in relatively good health with the impression it wasn’t necessary for them to get the vaccine. Without incentives – travel plans, being accepted to a college or having an employer that mandates vaccination – inertia carries the day.

The indifferent are not against vaccination. Rather, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “you do you” tend to typify their views. As Jose from Idaho reported, “I’m not worried because I’ve always taken care of myself.”

We also saw a modified form of indifference in those who believed that the protective steps they already were taking would be enough to keep them COVID-19-free. A janitor said, “I am an essential worker… So from the beginning we took … all the precautions … face masks, taking [social] distance [and using] natural medicines and vitamins for the immune system.” He had, indeed, so far avoided contracting COVID-19.

The view of vaccines as not immediately necessary is magnified among some Latino people by the cultural value placed on the need to endure – “aguantar” in Spanish — to bear up, push through and avoid complaining about daily struggles. This perspective can be seen in many immigrant or impoverished populations, where getting sick or injured can be a precursor to household ruin through job loss and exorbitant, unpayable medical bills.

Yet another dynamic we learned of is what we term “vaccine ambivalence.” Some participants who view COVID-19 as a significant health threat believe the vaccine poses an equivalent risk. We saw this particularly among African Americans in Alabama – not necessarily surprising given that the health care system has not always had these communities’ best interests at heart. The perceived conundrum leaves people stuck on the fence. Given the legacy of unequal treatment in communities of color, when balancing the “known” of COVID-19 against the unknown of vaccination, their inaction may seem reasonable – especially when coupled with mask-wearing and social distancing.
Attending to blind spots

At this point in the pandemic, those with the means and will to get vaccinated have done so. Providing viable counternarratives to misinformation can help bring more people on board. But continuing to focus solely on individual mistrustfulness toward vaccines or so-called hesitancy obscures the other complex reasons people have for being wary of the system and bypassing vaccination.

Moreover, an overly narrow focus on the vaccine leaves a lot outside the frame. A wider view reveals that the problems leading to inequitable vaccination coverage are the same structural problems that have, historically, prevented people of color from having a fair shot at good health and economic outcomes to begin with – problems that even a 100% vaccination rate cannot resolve.

Elisa J. Sobo, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, San Diego State University; Diana Schow, Visiting Assistant Professor of Community and Public Health; Executive Director, Southeast Idaho Area Health Education Center, Institute of Rural Health, Idaho State University, Idaho State University, and Stephanie McClure, Assistant Professor of Biocultural Medical Anthropology, University of Alabama

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why vaccine competition may now be world's best bet

John Kampfner

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Published: 7:00 AM July 10, 2021   

LEFT BEHIND: Health workers bring Covid-19 vaccines to a site in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. Africa has received only 2% of the vaccines administered globally - Credit: Getty Images

In a special report, JOHN KAMPFNER explores the failure of the US, Europe, China and Russia to work together on global vaccine provision, and how the developing world can exploit their rivalry

Relations between the major powers are at their worst for decades with cooperation thin on the ground, and Covid-19 having deepened suspicions further. In April, the US Senate passed the Strategic Competition Act with bipartisan support, promising to “counter the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party globally”.

In front of his American counterpart, China’s top foreign policy official denounced the effrontery of those who “smear” Chinese democracy. Joe Biden calls Vladimir Putin “a killer”, while the Kremlin has put the US at the top of its list of unfriendly countries.

Tension between China and India is high, the EU and UK are involved in repeated spats. Competition and mistrust are everywhere.

Far from producing greater collaboration in adversity, Covid has increased rivalries. Given that the tensions long pre-dated the pandemic and are unlikely to improve any time soon, it is hard to see how the major powers can be persuaded to cooperate better to tackle this crisis. Coronavirus is just the first test. Other crises will follow. If the disappointing results of the G7 are anything to go by, expectations should be managed even lower than they are already.

But experts I spoke to for a report commissioned by the international think tank Chatham House suggest there could be another way: the atmosphere of intense competition can actually be exploited to the advantage of developing economies.

A few weeks into the crisis, Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile and a member of the Elders group of international leaders wrote: “Hopefully the international institutions will rise to the challenge of responding to this pandemic with the force that it demands, because this crisis will not be overcome by defeating the disease in any one country alone, but by guaranteeing an end to the affliction throughout the world.”

The first reaction of nation states was to protect their own, hoard, close borders – and indulge in nationalist points-scoring. The more the US and its allies blamed China, both for the outbreak in Wuhan and for what many considered to be a cover-up, and the more China refused to provide the necessary access or information, the more distrustful and disjointed the global response became.

The final year of Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ presidency was characterised by a Covid policy of denial, denigration of science and, at that point, the world’s highest infection rate. The president launched repeated broadsides against the World Health Organization, denouncing its director general Tedros Ghebreyesus as a “puppet” of China; he announced the termination of the US’s WHO membership and $400m annual payment, putting its finances in peril just at a time when the organisation was most needed. Trump’s approach was borne partly of ideology, partly of a need to create a distraction from his administration’s incompetence.

Across the rich world, governments floundered in their initial response. Tedros himself summed it up as a year of extraordinary scientific success but political failure. The medical and health community rallied early, creating an initiative designed to distribute vaccines, even as they were still in the early stage of development. The aim of Covax, as it was called, was to produce and make available two billion vaccines by the end of 2021. ‘No-one is safe until everyone is safe’ became the mantra of collaboration.

Covax was heralded as the ‘only truly global solution’, but it was a mix of ambition and acknowledgement of the limited commitment of the big powers to collaborate to vaccinate the world. Even when fully rolled out, it will still account for only 20% of global need, what it calls “the priority fifth”. Still, something was better than nothing.

From the start of the pandemic, in the provision of masks or personal protective equipment (PPE), nation states indulged their competitive instincts. Vaccine diplomacy and its alter ego vaccine nationalism followed this trend.

Public relations battles were fought out not just between rivals, but also among supposed allies. The British government juxtaposed its mass purchase of vaccines with the early failures of the European Union as vindication of Brexit. For its part, the EU’s definition of solidarity was largely confined to the bloc.

On taking office in January 2021, Biden proclaimed that “America is back” in the mainstream of global affairs. He reversed the US decision to leave the WHO and turned around the domestic response with an impressively fast vaccination programme.

Yet the US rhetoric rarely matched the reality. Health policy was directed inwards: over-order on an industrial scale and vaccinate until the last person is done. Americans went from near panic to enjoying an oversupply of life-saving medicine, while death rates in poorer countries were growing sharply with vaccines desperately hard to come by. The West failed egregiously in the competition for goodwill, leaving a gaping vacuum for others to fill.

In poorer regions, the vaccines of choice were Sinopharm and Sinovac of China and Sputnik-V of Russia. Choice is perhaps the wrong term; they were the only ones made available, even though the Chinese brands had not yet been certified for use by the WHO. The Russian one has still not been, although a peer-reviewed paper in the Lancet has demonstrated its efficacy and safety.

By the end of May, China had sold or donated 700m doses in 90 countries. Russia was in 80. Each shipment carried national flags and was accompanied by photo-opportunities with grateful local dignitaries at the airport of arrival.

By late May, Latin America had exceeded one million deaths, the highest for any region in the world. It contains 8% of the global population but has 34% of infections. The region was long considered to be the United States’ backyard. Frustrated at the lack of vaccines, several leaders took to social media diplomacy to ‘vaccine shame’ their traditional ally.

In March, president of the Dominican Republic Luis Abinader tweeted: “President @JoeBiden, less-developed countries and traditional allies of the USA, like Dominican Republic, have approved the AstraZeneca vaccine and we need it urgently.” Euclides Acevedo, foreign minister of Paraguay, which was struggling to get Chinese vaccines because of its recognition of Taiwan, asked publicly of the US: “What use is fraternity if now they don’t give us a reply?”

Shortly after delivering 400,000 doses to Bolivia, the Kremlin trumpeted access to its resources. “We are sure that Russian-Bolivian ties will expand, especially in sectors such as energy, mining and the peaceful use of nuclear technologies,” Putin said after meeting president Luis Arce. Bolivia has the world’s largest supply of lithium – an indispensable component in batteries for mobile phones – but has struggled to attract foreign investment to extract it.

Goodwill was thin on the ground in contract negotiations. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism alleged in February that Pfizer had insisted to several Latin American governments that they put up sovereign assets such as embassy buildings and military bases as collateral against the cost of potential future legal cases.

Africa has received 2% of vaccines administered globally. The crisis was worsened by India’s decision to divert vaccines from the Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing facility, which had been earmarked for export to deal with the country’s own Covid emergency.

By May 2021, of 36 countries where death rates were rising, all but four were low- or middle-income countries. The cumulative effect has been to eradicate years of development, leading to a further division of wealth between nations and regions.

Africa imports 99 per cent of the vaccines it needs. The African Union has set a goal of 40% of vaccines to be produced on the continent within 20 years. Reforms such as these, vital though they are in the medium-term, will not alleviate the present crisis.

At first glance, the situation suggests a reversion back to the old paradigm of dependency. Yet there is another way of looking at Africa’s predicament. Some of the politics have changed. Three of the major UN institutions are now run by Africans. World Trade Organization (WTO) director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a former Nigerian government minister; UNAIDS’ executive director Winnie Byanyima was a Ugandan MP who then ran Oxfam International. The head of the WHO, Tedros, was an Ethiopian minister. A series of regional summits with Africa are planned for 2022 (several of which had been postponed because of the pandemic), including the EU, China and Turkey. Everyone is piling into Africa – and Africa knows it.

Discussion of big-power winners and losers may actually be missing the point. This narrative assumes that recipient countries have little or no agency and are unable to disaggregate the various motivations and decide for themselves. Therefore, it may not feel like that now, as populations reel, but developing economies have more influence than before.

A recent Chinese White Paper on international development states: “China considers it a mission to contribute more to humanity. Its wish is to offer more public goods to the international community and join forces with other countries to build a better common future.” Humanitarian assistance merges with geo-strategic motives. Is that noticeably different to other countries’ international development policies?

Covid-19 has given China an opportunity to portray itself as a responsible, science-based global leader, a ‘pharma power’, helping to shift the narrative from its role in the cause of the crisis.

“There has been a significant shift in power. The West hasn’t quite learnt how to influence the Global South in these new times. It is relying on its old toolbox of persuasion – through aid for example – or diplomatic pressure or coercion,” says Champa Patel, director of the Asia-Pacific region at Chatham House. “What will not work is trying to instrumentalise emerging powers for Western capitals’ strategic interests. This is as true for China attempting to do as much as for Western capitals.”

In any case, do motives matter that much in a time of crisis, particularly when the other side is absent from the pitch?

Just how committed is the Biden administration? A number of its initiatives seemed designed more to project systemic rivalry, particularly against China, than to embrace multilateralism.

In early May, US trade representative Katherine Tai announced that Washington would support a waiver on intellectual property for vaccines. A number of countries, led by India and South Africa, had long been calling for the removal of restrictions on the transfer of patents in pharmaceuticals, something that had been agreed at the WTO in 1995. It had become an emotive issue.

Tedros hailed it move as “a monumental moment”. The move delighted civil society groups, but startled allies. A number of biotech-strong countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Canada and Britain opposed the idea. The White House is likely to have assumed that it would not prevail, but the initiative secured two goals: it put pressure on big pharma to do more to free up licensing and transferring technology, and it made America look good.

In the same week, Biden declared: “Our nation is going to be the arsenal of vaccines for the rest of the world. I literally have, virtually 40% of the world leaders calling and asking, can we help them. We’re going to try.” He promised that the US would deliver 80m vaccines, including from AstraZeneca, which had not been approved by his own country’s regulator, the FDA.

By this point, the US had not exported a single vial. A whole year after the establishment of Covax, a mere 70m vaccines had been sent through the multilateral facility – a tiny proportion of the not-so-ambitious two billion target.

In a report published in May, a group of 13 global statesmen and women, led by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former president of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, sketched out a credible road map across all areas of Covid-19 policy, providing a midway point between radicalism – what should be achieved – and realism – what, given the disappointing circumstances, could be achieved.

The International Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, as the group is known, called for a UN Pandemic Treaty and an International Pandemic Financing Facility that could mobilise funding of up to $10bn per year. It also proposed a new global surveillance system, in which the WHO would have explicit authority to publish information about outbreaks without the prior approval of national governments and to dispatch experts to investigate pathogens with guaranteed right of access.

Yet in recent months, a series of meetings – from a Global Health Summit of the G20 to the World Health Assembly – have disappointed. On the eve of each of these forums, health experts and activists urged governments to do more. They cited compelling economic arguments. Fully financing Covax for 2021 would cost less than 1% of what governments have spent on stimulus packages for their own citizens. G7 nations could spend just 50p a week per citizen to help supply the poorest nations.

The task is enormous and urgent. The number of doses needed to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population is a staggering 11bn. So far only about 1.7bn have been produced; far, far fewer have been equitably distributed.

On the eve of the G7, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr John Nkengasong, declared: “Our worst nightmare has come to reality.” He added: “When this pandemic started, we cautioned that if we do not work in a cooperative way and express global solidarity we may run into a moral catastrophe.”

The messaging NGOs have used to persuade governments has become ever more desperate and ever more instrumentalist. ‘Self-interest’ became too tame. ‘Return on investment’ – a curious term for saving lives – started to be used.

In spite of all the entreaties, Covax remains low on nations’ priorities. One of the problems is that it deprives donor states of recognition or reward. One example spoke volumes. French president Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen toyed with the idea of circumventing Covax by donating directly – with supplies labelled ‘Team Europe’ alongside colour-coded maps to track the destinations of vaccines from rival producers. In the UK, Boris Johnson was reported to have wanted the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed in conjunction with Oxford University, to be labelled with Union Jacks.

Compassion wrapped up in a logo. Why bother with a centralised distribution network when you can earn plaudits for ostentatious generosity?

Considerations such as these formed the backdrop for the G7 summit in mid-June. For the first time since the pandemic started, leaders of the richest nations gathered by a Cornish beach to discuss Covid, climate change – and the rise of China. Their deliberations were not helped by a renewed bout of in-fighting between the UK and the EU. Biden used the meeting to frame geopolitics as a contest between democracies and autocrats and called for a Western infrastructure alternative to China’s Belt and Road.

The final decision – to provide fewer than the 1 billion vaccines that had been trailed beforehand, with no mechanism for delivery and with a vague deadline – was denounced by Gordon Brown as an “unforgivable moral failure”.

He wasn’t alone. Economist and long-time UN adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, described the G7 as an anachronism. “They give the appearance of solving global problems, while really leaving them to fester,” Sachs said. “We need Asia, Africa and Latin America at the table for any true global problem-solving.”

Will the G20 meeting in Rome at the end of October, with its wider representation, do any better? More nations and more political systems will be represented. That is an opportunity to do business face-to-face. It is also opportunity for more grandstanding between systemic rivals.

Even at the height of Cold War tensions, the US and Russia were part of a global coalition to eradicate smallpox. Yet with Covid, big-power collaboration has been virtually non-existent, with little prospect for improvement.

Biden’s instruction to his intelligence to “redouble” their efforts and identify a “definitive conclusion” within 90 days on how the virus was first transmitted in humans has enraged the Chinese government.

Have the US and its allies left it too late? The poorest countries hit hardest in the last few months may well remember the fact that America was planning to inoculate its children while the elderly and frail and key workers in Africa and Latin America were dying. 

Those countries who were helped out at their time of most need may retain a residual sense of affinity, perhaps obligation, towards China and Russia. Perhaps with this in mind, American officials insist that they are not trying to pressurise countries to make a zero-sum choice. As Blinken told a Nato meeting in March: “The US won’t force allies into an ‘us-or-them’ choice with China”.

Perhaps developing countries can make a virtue of this unrelenting soft-power rivalry. Imagine a situation in which production increases and the competing powers vie to entice recipient countries. They would compete against each other on the efficacy and reliability of vaccines, on cost and terms – and on geo-strategic allegiances.

“Is it the end of the world if America, China and the others compete to ensure vaccinations?” asks Jim O’Neill, the economist and former government minister who has been on a number of G7 and G20 working groups. “Who cares where they come from or which political system they belong to if they save lives?”

This is not as it should be. In a perfect world, multilateral and cooperation would be the guiding principles. Where such collaboration exists, it should be promoted and pursued. But this crisis has shown the world at its most imperfect. If rivalry has to prevail, it can be turned to the advantage of those who most need assistance. Vaccine competition may end up being the world’s best bet.

This is an adapted version of a long-read for Chatham House which can be found here 

Haiti on edge as conspiracy theories about President's assassination fill the vacuum

By Caitlin Hu and Etant Dupain, CNN 

The charred shells of three burned-out cars marked the road to the president's house on Friday in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Just up the hill, former leader Jovenel Moise had been murdered in his bedroom two days earlier, in an otherwise quiet neighborhood of big houses and high walls topped with barbed wire and jacaranda flowers.

© Richard Pierrin/Getty Images A soldier patrols the area near the police station of Petion Ville where people protest after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise on July 8 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

What exactly happened during the Wednesday attack is still unknown, along with its motive. But Carl Henri Destin, a local district judge tasked with investigating and documenting the crime scene, described the aftermath in minute detail to CNN.

"The doors were riddled with bullets, the glass was broken, the doors were smashed, even the locks were destroyed and lying on the ground," he said.

Inside, up a wide bloodstained stairway leading to a bedroom, Destin says he peered through another smashed doorway, and saw his President lying on the ground.

"He was wearing a white shirt and a pair of blue jeans. His shirt was ripped and full of blood. I saw 12 visible bullet wounds in the president's body...they smashed his left eye, but both were still open."

© David von Blohn/CNN Burnt out cars line the street near the late President's residence in Haiti.

Dozens of viral images and videos purporting to show the shocking attack are circulating in Haiti and abroad, of which few can be verified as authentic. But hardly any show Moise, the damage left by the attack, or the removal of his body from the house; Destin takes credit for that, explaining that he forbade most other people at the crime scene from snapping photos out of respect for the fallen leader. 

© David von Blohn/CNN Violence broke out after Haiti's President was assassinated on Wednesday.

Yet in perhaps a sign of the intense local hunger for an explanation, even the absence of images is spawning conspiracy theories. And in Port-au-Prince, it's all adding momentum to a wave of speculation and uncertainty in a city already rattled by rampant criminal violence, economic deprivation and political instability.

What we know and don't know

Many questions remain unanswered about what exactly transpired in the Haitian president's house on the night of his death.

What we do know is that according to the remaining government -- now led by acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph -- Moise's home was attacked around 1 a.m. He was killed, and his wife, First Lady Martine Moise, was wounded. She has since been flown to Miami for treatment.

A group of at least 28 people are suspected in the killing, of which 26 are Colombian and two are US citizens. So far, 20 of those suspects have been detained, five are on the loose and three have been killed.

© David von Blohn/CNN The charred shell of a car following the killing of Haiti's President.

According to a spokesman for the acting Prime Minister's office, those burned-out cars down the street from Moise's house belonged to some of the suspects, whom police later confronted in a shootout. The nearest storefront, decorated with a worn banner quoting Psalm 27:1's "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" testifies to a fearsome battle with mounds of shattered glass, bullet marks and streaks of blood.

Video: What we know about the death of Haiti's president (CNN)

Colombian National Police Chief General Jorge Vargas said Friday that 13 retired members of the Colombian Army had traveled to Haiti over the past months and are believed to have been involved in the assassination. But why a group of foreign nationals would attack Haiti's President is still unknown. No statements have been released from the suspects in detention, and the investigation is far from over.

"There is a mastermind behind this assassination, and that is what we need to find out," Elections Minister Mathias Pierre told CNN.

Also unclear is how the killers were able to penetrate multiple levels of presidential security, including police checkpoints on the road and Moise's personal guard. Despite the apparent scale of the attack, and signs of rampant gunfire in the President's home documented by Destin, none of the President's guards were injured, Haiti's elections minister Mathias Pierre told CNN.

Destin, who collected testimony from witnesses at the scene the next morning, said he has been unable to hear any firsthand accounts of what happened during the attack itself. When he arrived at the President's house, the police security booth was unmanned, and agents without identifying badge or insignia met him at the entrance, he said.

"I was informed that nobody who was there on the night of the killing was present...I did not have a chance to talk to anybody who was on the scene during the attack," Destin said.

The investigation is ongoing, and Haiti's interim government has asked for additional assistance from the US and UN to help dig into the matter.

Senior FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials are expected to travel to Port-au-Prince "as soon as possible" to provide assistance on both security and the investigation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday. Colombia is also sending its national intelligence chief to aid in the investigation.


What comes next

Further down the line, are myriad more unanswered questions, from when the President's funeral will be held, to who should succeed him, and even whether the country is prepared to move forward with much-anticipated elections this fall. Over it all hangs a sense of foreboding, and many streets in Port-au-Prince have been unusually empty.

The assassination has sharpened fears of other violent outbreaks in the capital city, which saw more than 13,000 people displaced from their homes by arson and battles between police and rival gangs in the month of June alone. Haiti's interim government has now requested that both the US and United Nations supply troops to enforce security at key infrastructural points like the ports, airports and oil terminals.

Elections Minister Pierre, who feared that he and other top officials might be targeted when he first learned of Moise's death, says he still feels that he could now face retribution for continuing the deceased president's political agenda.

"Anyone running for office, including myself, knows that we will face danger, and we are conscious of the danger of trying to make major changes in the country," he said.

Moise, 53, was a divisive figure in Haiti, and many opposition and civil society leaders had been calling for his resignation for more than a year. His signature project, the subject of a referendum planned for this September, was a proposed overhaul of the Haitian constitution that would strengthen the executive branch -- a change that critics feared would erode democracy, but which Moise argued was vital for leading meaningful change in the country.

The question of who should even be running the current government is also overshadowed by discord and doubt. Days before his death, Moise named neurosurgeon Ariel Henry as his new prime minister -- which means that between Henry and acting Prime Minister Joseph there are two potential claims to the premiership. And there is an additional challenger for the top leadership role: Reuters reports that Senate leader Joseph Lambert was nominated on Friday by fellow lawmakers to assume the presidency ad interim.

Meanwhile Destin, the judge, says he is receiving death threats from Haitians who believe it's all a hoax and that Moise is still alive, somewhere. "They are accusing me of being a part of the plot -- they say the president was not killed -- rather he was kidnapped."

In the current atmosphere, he can't afford to take such threats lightly, he said. "I have received anonymous calls from people threatening me. As a judge, there is not really a security plan to protect me... so I've had to go into hiding to protect myself and my family, my wife and my children."

© David von Blohn/CNN Bullet casings on the ground in the wake of President Moise's assassination in Haiti.

ABC News   

Haitian prime minister: President was tortured and killed in his own home

VIDEO Duration: 04:40

Haitian prime minister: President was tortured and killed in his own home (msn.com)

Colombia’s “first line” protesters: folk heroes and terror suspects

by Adriaan Alsema July 6, 2021

Painting florifying the "First Line" protesters by artist Dario Ortiz


While many in Colombia praise the kids who have protected anti-government protesters against police brutality, authorities are desperately trying to criminalize these so called “First Line” groups.

According to Prosecutor General Francisco Barbosa, the collective of local groups are “gangs” and one is guilty of terrorism, though he failed to produce any evidence.

Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor is under increasing pressure to investigate police brutality, which he has tried to avoid like the plague.

One would almost feel sorry for Barbosa who has been at the center of controversy since taking office last year for bungling virtually all his responsibilities due to his mind-boggling incompetence.

The troubled prosecutor hasn’t had the easiest job as hiding the evidence that links President Ivan Duque to drug traffickers is a lot cause, not to mention the evidence indicating that former President Alvaro Uribe is nothing but a mafioso.

Prosecutor General Fransisco Barbosa

The First Line’s popularity

Meanwhile, the First Line groups enjoy broad support in their respective communities, especially those who have suffered most from the extremely violent efforts to crack down on the protests.

These urban communities have gone as far as providing the protesters with food and have praised the “First Liners” for their bravery in the face of almost unprecedented police brutality.

A collective of defense attorneys, the “Judicial First Line,” has additionally gathered hundreds of of volunteers who provide the youthful protester with legal aid against the apparent persecution by the government.

Unaccustomed to voluntary support for anti-government protesters, the prosecution has been trying to find evidence of illegal financing of these groups.

Residents in Yopal preparing a community meal for the local First Line groups.
Increasing evidence of a mafia government

Babosa is clutching at straws as Defense Minister Diego Molano and General Jorge Luis Vargas of the National Police are facing accusations of committing crimes against humanity.

Furthermore, regional police commanders throughout the country have been accused of teaming up with armed civilians to to put an end to the protests.

The commander of the Medellin Police on Saturday announced investigations into local cops for allegedly colluding with armed civilians in an operation to end protests on Saturday.

Cali already lost its police chief after evidence emerged indicating he tried to cover up police collusion with armed civilians in an attack on indigenous protesters.

Two weeks after a court ordered the prosecution to release protesters from the town of Armenia due to a lack of evidence, the prosecution on Monday again arrested alleged First Line protesters based solely on “presumptions”.

Seven people who were captured were allegedly part of the self-styled Primera Línea in Armenia. It is presumed that they participated in acts of terrorism and vandalism in municipalities of Quindío.

Prosecutor General’s Office

The collapse of the “Mafia puppet president”

President Ivan Duque (Image: President’s Office)

US lawmakers last week approved a resolution that blocked one third of the National Police’s counternarcotics budget until Barbosa effectively prosecutes police who allegedly murdered 40 protesters.

The chief prosecutor has been trying to avoid doing exactly that as these prosecutions could lead to evidence of the high-level involvement in crimes against humanity as claimed by the opposition.

Barbosa doesn’t seem to have either the capacity or the ability to protect the police or Duque, the chief prosecutor’s friend of more than 25 years.

Meanwhile, there is no indication that First Line protest will end before the president leaves office in August next year to go down as the “worst president in history”.