Haiti: Inside the capital city taken hostage by brutal gangs
In Port-au-Prince you cannot see the boundaries, but you must know where they are. Your life may depend on it. Competing gangs are carving up the Haitian capital, kidnapping, raping, and killing at will. They demarcate their territory in blood. Cross from one gang's turf to another, and you may not make it back.
Those who live here carry a mental map, dividing this teeming city into green, yellow, and red zones. Green means gang free, yellow can be safe today and deadly tomorrow, and red is a no-go area. The green area is shrinking as heavily armed gangs tighten their grip.
Armed groups control - and terrorise - at least 60% of the capital and its surroundings, according to Haitian human rights groups. They encircle the city, controlling roads in and out. And the UN says the gangs killed almost 1,000 people here between January and June of this year.
Italy home to 11 of 100-plus unofficial Chinese ‘police stations’
Civil rights group claims outposts are used to monitor Chinese population abroad and force dissidents to return
Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Italy hosts the highest number of unofficial Chinese “police stations” out of a network of more than 100 around the world, a report by a Spanish civil rights group has claimed.
The northern Italian city of Milan was allegedly used by two local Chinese public security authorities as a European testing ground for a policing strategy to monitor the Chinese population abroad and force dissidents to return home.
The Madrid-based Safeguard Defenders reported in September that 54 such stations allegedly existed around the world, prompting police investigations in at least 12 countries including Canada, Germany and the Netherlands.
Sudan's military, parties sign initial transition deal
Sudan's military generals and civilian pro-democracy factions have reached an intial agreement to resume civilian transition following a military takeover last year.
Sudan's ruling generals and a coalition of civilian opposition leaders on Monday signed a framework agreement to pave the way for a civilian-led transitional government.
The deal is meant to guide the country towards elections and offer a path forward after the coup in October 2021 halted Sudan's transition to civilian rule.
Anti-military protests have continued in the country since the coup, with key factions opposing and staying out of the initial framework inked Monday.
QAnon's Japan branch searched over obstructing COVID vaccinations
Police searched the head office of a group claiming to be the Japanese arm of U.S. conspiracy cult QAnon in Shizuoka Prefecture on Monday after its members were arrested last week for forcing their way into a local mass coronavirus vaccination site earlier this year.
Eight members of the YamatoQ group, including one of its leaders, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of trespassing after they intruded into the vaccination site in Yaizu in the central Japanese prefecture in March.
According to police, those arrested shouted "Vaccination is an act of murder" at the site. The prefectural police searched the group's head office in Fukuroi.
Opinion: Elon Musk’s Twitter is helping to normalize a neo-Nazi
Elon Musk apparently is trying his hand at creating a major media story by the release of what he called the “Twitter Files,” which included internal Twitter documents from October 2020 showing the social media company’s executives debating whether to allow postings on the platform of a New York Post article about a laptop Hunter Biden reportedly owned.
As CNN reported, Musk’s release on Friday pointed to tweets by journalist Matt Taibbi, who was provided “with emails that largely corroborated what was already known about the incident.”
But the Twitter story that demands coverage is not about something that happened more than two years ago but what we are seeing now on Twitter since Musk took control in October. There has been an “unprecedented” spike in hate speech as well as a resurgence of ISIS-linked accounts, The New York Times detailed in an article published Friday, citing findings from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups studying online platforms.
Covid Protests in China Raise Hope for Solidarity Among Activists Abroad
People opposing Beijing over issues like Hong Kong, Taiwan or the persecution of Uyghurs see the moment as an opportunity to find common cause.
Tiffany May and
Three years ago in Melbourne, Australia, Ronnie Li and other students from mainland China chanted in support of their government. They were trying to drown out a rally promoting the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, the biggest challenge to Beijing’s authority in years.
Ms. Li, 23, has since changed her mind about that issue — and about much else.
In recent days, she said, she and other mainland Chinese students have demonstrated in Australia against Beijing’s policies, calling for more freedom in China, including an easing of Covid restrictions.
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