Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Haiti gang seeks $1 million per person for kidnapped missionaries

(Reuters) -A Haitian gang that kidnapped a group of American and Canadian missionaries is asking for $17 million — or $1 million each — to release them, according to a top Haitian official.

Justice Minister Liszt Quitel told Reuters that talks were underway with kidnappers to seek the release of the missionaries abducted over the weekend outside the capital Port-au-Prince by a gang called 400 Mawozo.

The minister confirmed the hefty ransom fee, telling Reuters “they asked for $1 million per person.” The fee was first reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier in the day.

CNN reported earlier on Tuesday the kidnappers first called Christian Aid Ministries – the group to which the victims belonged – on Saturday and immediately conveyed the price tag for the missionaries release. The FBI and Haitian police were advising the group in negotiations, the minister said.

Several calls between the kidnappers and the missionary group have taken place since their disappearance, the minister told CNN.

The Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries called for prayers for the “Haitian and American civil authorities who are working to resolve this situation” in a statement.

The group of 16 Americans and 1 Canadian includes six women and five children, including an eight-month old baby, the missionary organization said. They were abducted in an area called Croix-des-Bouquets, about 8 miles (13 km) outside the capital, which is dominated by the 400 Mawozo gang.

Five priests and two nuns, including two French citizens, were abducted in April in Croix-des-Bouquets and were released later that month.

Quitel told the Wall Street Journal that a ransom was paid for the release of two of those priests.

Kidnappings have become more brazen and commonplace in Haiti amid a growing political and economic crisis, with at least 628 incidents in the first nine months of 2021 alone, according to a report by the Haitian nonprofit Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, or CARDH.

Haitians on Monday mounted a nationwide strike to protest gang crime and kidnappings, which have been on the rise for years and have worsened since the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Shops were open again on Tuesday in Port-au-Prince and public transportation had starting circulating again. Transport sector leaders had pushed for the strike, in part because transport workers are frequent targets of gang kidnappings.

The FBI said in a statement on Monday that it is part of a U.S. government effort to get the Americans involved to safety.

Kidnappings in Haiti rarely involved foreigners.

The victims are usually middle-class Haitians who cannot afford bodyguards but can nonetheless put together a ransom by borrowing money from family or selling property.

The growing crisis in Haiti has also become a major issue for the United States. A wave of thousands of Haitian migrants arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last month, but many were deported to their home country shortly after.

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn, Brian Ellsworth and Gessika Thomas; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Alistair Bell)

Older people in Moscow told to stay home for four months amid COVID surge

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Moscow city government on Tuesday ordered elderly people to stay home for four months and told businesses to have at least 30% of staff work from home amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Russia.

The new rules take effect from Oct. 25, it said in a statement. Russia on Tuesday reported 1,015 coronavirus-related deaths, the highest single-day toll since the start of the pandemic, as well as 33,740 new infections in the past 24 hours.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov;; Editing by Alison Williams)

U.S. State Dept IG launches probes into end of Afghanistan operations -Politico

(Reuters) -A U.S. State Department watchdog is launching a series of investigations into the chaotic end of the Biden administration’s diplomatic operations in Afghanistan, including the emergency evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Politico reported on Monday.

Politico said its report was based on State Department and congressional officials and documents.

In addition to the embassy evacuation, the agency’s acting inspector general will also look into the State Department’s Special Immigrant Visa Program, the processing of Afghans for admission as refugees, and their resettlement in the United States, the news website said.

The acting inspector general, Diana Shaw, notified Congress of the move on Monday. In a letter to lawmakers, Shaw said her office was launching “several oversight projects” related to the end of the U.S. military and diplomatic missions in Afghanistan, Politico said.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Politico quoted an OIG spokesperson as saying the inquiries will be reviews and not investigations. The spokesperson confirmed the office had notified the relevant congressional committees of the reviews.

In mid-August, the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed as the Taliban swept through the country at lightning speed and marched into the capital, Kabul, unopposed. The United States was then left seeking the militant group’s cooperation in the chaotic U.S. evacuation from Kabul.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis)

Latvia announces four weeks of lockdown as COVID-19 cases spike

RIGA (Reuters) -Latvia announced a COVID-19 lockdown from Oct. 21 until Nov. 15 to try to slow a spike in infections in one of the least vaccinated European Union countries.

“Our health system is in danger … The only way out of this crisis is to get vaccinated,” Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said after an emergency government meeting, blaming low vaccination rates for the spike in hospitalizations.

Only 54% of Latvian adults have been fully vaccinated, well below EU average of 74%, EU figures show.

“I have to apologize to the already vaccinated,” Karins said, announcing that shops, restaurants, schools and entertainment will be closed, with only essential services available and a curfew in place from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Only essential manufacturing, construction and critical jobs will be allowed to continue in person.

One of the two largest Riga hospitals began installing makeshift beds for COVID-19 patients in its atrium to cope with the influx, the national broadcaster reported.

No travel restrictions were announced “since infection rates elsewhere are much lower, and we don’t see immediate risks,” Karins said.

New cases in Latvia increased by 49% in the week to Sunday, its health authority said, according to the BNS wire.

The Latvian government cancelled most planned hospital operations last week amid an increased need for beds and staff as COVID-19 cases climb.

The country had reported the second-worst infection numbers in the EU, after neighbor Lithuania, in the fortnight to Oct. 10, with 864 new cases per 10,000 people.

Latvian President Egils Levits tested positive last week, prompting Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto, who had had breakfast with Levits a day earlier, to self-isolate.

(Reporting by Janis Laizans, writing by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, editing by Chris Reese and Giles Elgood)

Biden administration asks U.S. Supreme Court to block Texas abortion law

By Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block a Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on abortion, calling the Republican-backed measure plainly unconstitutional and specifically designed to evade judicial scrutiny.

The administration asked the Supreme Court to quickly reverse a decision this month by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift a judge’s order blocking the law while litigation over the statute’s legality continues. The justices in a 5-4 Sept. 1 decision let the law take effect in a separate challenge brought by abortion providers in the state.

The Texas measure, one of a series of restrictive abortion laws passed at the state level in recent years, bans the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant.

The Justice Department, which filed suit last month in a bid to stop the law, told the Supreme Court in a filing that the 5th Circuit’s action enables the ongoing violation by the state of Texas “of this court’s precedents and its citizens’ constitutional rights.”

“Texas’s insistence that no party can bring a suit challenging S.B. 8 amounts to an assertion that the federal courts are powerless to halt the state’s ongoing nullification of federal law. That proposition is as breathtaking as it is dangerous,” the Justice Department added, using the formal name of the Texas law.

The filing also said that “given the importance and urgency of the issues” involved the Supreme Court could decide to take up and hear arguments in the case even before lower courts have issued their own final rulings.

The Texas measure makes an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for cases of rape or incest. It also gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the fetus. That feature has helped shield the law from being immediately blocked by making it more difficult to directly sue the state.

Under the law, individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits. Critics have said this provision lets people act as anti-abortion bounty hunters, a characterization its proponents reject.

The Biden administration’s lawsuit argued that the law impedes women from exercising their constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy as recognized in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. It also argued that the law improperly interferes with the operations of the federal government to provide abortion-related services.

In his Oct. 6 ruling blocking the law, U.S. Judge Robert Pitman found that the measure was likely unconstitutional and designed to avoid judicial scrutiny. Pitman said he would “not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. When the Supreme Court allowed the law to take effect, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts dissented along with the three liberal justices, expressing skepticism about how the measure is enforced.

Roberts said he would have blocked the law’s enforcement at that point “so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.”

Supreme Court asked Texas to respond to the Justice Department’s request by midday on Thursday.

The Supreme Court already is set to consider a major abortion case on Dec. 1 in a dispute centering on Mississippi’s law banning abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy, Mississippi has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. A ruling in the Mississippi case is due by the end of next June.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. Coast Guard boards ship in connection with California oil spill

(Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard boarded a container ship on Saturday in the Port of Long Beach that dragged its anchor close to a subsea pipeline found to be the source of an oil spill off Orange County, California, it said in a press release.

The spill released some 3,000 barrels (126,000 gallons) of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean, killing wildlife, blackening the coastline and forcing officials to close beaches south of Los Angeles.

In its statement, the Coast Guard said an investigation had determined that the MSC DANIT was involved in the anchor-dragging incident “during a heavy weather event” that impacted Long Beach and Los Angeles ports in January.

As a result, it said, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A., which operates the vessel, and Dordellas Finance Corporation, the ship’s owner, have been designated by the Coast Guard as parties of interest in the investigation.

The designation allows the companies to be represented by counsel, examine and cross-examine witnesses, and call witnesses who are relevant to the investigation, the Coast Guard said.

MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Dordellas Finance Corporation could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Coast Guard said the investigation was ongoing and that “multiple pipeline scenarios” as well as additional vessels of interest continue to be investigated.

Amplify Energy, which owns the pipeline, has said it was “pulled like a bowstring” about 105 feet (32 meters) from where it should have been.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Ethiopian families fleeing fighting describe hunger, rape in Amhara

By Giulia Paravicini, Dawit Endeshaw and Maggie Fick

DESSIE, Ethiopia (Reuters) – The pictures on her phone are all that Ethiopian mother Habtam Akele has left of her three-year-old daughter Saba. The girl died of malnutrition last month before the family was able to flee south, deeper into Ethiopia’s Amhara region.

“They (doctors) told me she has been severely affected by malnutrition and they cannot help. Then they gave me some syrup and tablets. She passed away exactly a week later,” Habtam told Reuters earlier this month, clutching her surviving nine-month-old baby.

Habtam is among an influx of thousands of Amhara families fleeing to the town of Dessie from fighting further north. Officials warn the already overcrowded makeshift camps, where displaced people sleep in rows in school classrooms, will fill further after renewed clashes.

Conflict erupted between the ruling party of the rebellious northern region of Tigray – the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – and the Ethiopian central government last November.

In July, the TPLF pushed into the neighboring region of Amhara, whose forces had fought alongside the military against the Tigrayans, as well as into the region of Afar.

The Tigrayan advance forced around 250,000 people to flee their homes in Amhara, the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in September.

On Monday, the TPLF said the Ethiopian military had launched an offensive to try to dislodge the Tigrayan fighters from Amhara, following a barrage of air strikes reported last week.

The military and government have not answered calls seeking information on the offensive, but a post on the military’s official Facebook page said “they (the TPLF) have opened war on all fronts” and said the military was inflicting heavy casualties.

Diplomats are worried that renewed fighting will further destabilize Ethiopia, a nation of 109 million people, and deepen hunger in Tigray and the surrounding regions.

Habtam said there was little food in the areas under Tigrayan control and that Tigrayan forces took scarce medicines from local pharmacies.

Getachew Reda, the spokesman for the TPLF, told Reuters that Tigrayan forces had not looted pharmacies that supplied local populations and had set up a generator to alleviate water shortages in Habtam’s area.

Reuters had no way of independently verifying Habtam’s account since her home, to the north in Kobo, is off-limits to journalists due to fighting and phone connections to the area are down.

ARMED MAN

The United Nations has said that the Ethiopian government is only letting a trickle of food trucks and no medicines or fuel into Tigray despite estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are in famine conditions there – a charge the government denies. Hospitals there have run out of crucial medicines.

Both sides accuse each other of committing atrocities. Reuters has previously documented gang-rapes and mass killings of civilians in Tigray, and some Amhara residents told Reuters that Tigrayans were also committing abuses in territory they control. Both sides have denied the allegations.

Another woman at the camps told Reuters that she had been raped by an armed man speaking Tigrinya, the language of Tigray, in an area of Amhara under Tigrayan control. Saada, 28, told Reuters she had been attacked in her house in Mersa, 80 km north of Dessie, by the armed man in plain clothes. She did not recall the exact date but said it was around the end of August.

“He said to me ‘We left our houses both to kill and to die. I am from the jungle so, I have all the right to do whatever I want. I can even kill you’ and he raised his gun to me and threatened to kill me,” she said. “Then he raped me.”

She provided a card showing she had visited Dessie Comprehensive Specialized Hospital for treatment. She asked Reuters not to use her full name to protect her from reprisals.

Leul Mesfin, the medical director of Dessie hospital declined to answer questions about civilian injuries or rapes, or individual cases, because he said he did not trust foreign journalists.

When asked about the rape, Getachew of the TPLF said any reported incident would be investigated and that the actions of one man should not implicate Tigrayan forces in general.

“I can’t vouch for each and every off-breed idiot who masquerades as a fighter,” he said. “There are millions of (men with) guns there.”

(Maggie Fick reported from Nairobi; Editing by Katharine Houreld and Alison Williams)

Hundreds protest in Bangladesh over religious violence

DHAKA (Reuters) – Hundreds of people protested in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Monday calling for an end to religious violence that has gripped the country for four days, leading to at least two deaths and several injured.

The violence began on Oct. 15, when hundreds of Muslims protested in the southeastern Noakhali district over an allegedly blasphemous incident. Two Hindu men died following that protest, Mohammed Shahidul Islam, the police chief in Noakhali, told Reuters by phone.

“There is some confusion about whether they died due to the unlawful assembly, or otherwise,” Islam said, adding that police are investigating the deaths. “They (the protestors) were miscreants, actually, that is all we can say.”

Islam declined to share further details.

Several Hindu religious sites have been attacked in recent days, which the country’s home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said were attacks aimed at destroying the communal harmony in Bangladesh. Hindus make up around 10% of the Muslim-majority country’s population.

“No incident has been reported since Saturday night. Our security forces are working patiently based on intelligence information,” Khan told the news agency ANI.

Unidentified “miscreants” attacked some homes in the Rangpur city on Monday, police told the agency.

The unrest is some of the worst in Bangladesh since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party came to power there in 2009. It poses a challenge to her party, which is seen as the more secular one of the two political groups that have alternated power in Bangladesh for most of its independent history.

Some of those gathered to protest near the Dhaka University in the capital city on Monday held up banners that demanded the police identify the attackers and bring them to justice.

“Safety of minorities in the country must be ensured,” one of the banners read.

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui and Rafiqur Rahman; Editing by Alistair Bell)

FBI involved in effort to recover U.S. missionaries kidnapped in Haiti – source

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The FBI will assist in the investigation and efforts to locate and free a group of U.S. Christian missionaries who have been kidnapped and are being held by a criminal gang in Haiti, a U.S. law enforcement official told Reuters on Monday.

The Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries organization on Sunday said a group of its missionaries had been kidnapped in Haiti. The group includes 16 Americans and one Canadian.

They were in Haiti to visit an orphanage when their bus was hijacked on Saturday outside the capital Port-au-Prince, according to accounts by other missionaries, amid a spike in kidnappings following the murder of President Jovenel Moise.

The incident is a further sign the Caribbean nation’s gangs are growing increasingly brazen amid political and economic crises.

Specific details of the role the FBI will play in trying to free the missionaries were not immediately available. The FBI’s national press office said in a statement it was referring questions on the kidnapping to the State Department.

Representatives of key congressional committees overseeing foreign affairs and law enforcement said they had not been briefed on FBI involvement in efforts to locate and free the missionaries.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Haitians strike to protest kidnappings; pressure grows to free missionaries

By Gessika Thomas

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haitians on Monday joined a nationwide general strike to protest a growing wave of kidnappings, days after the abduction of a U.S.-based group of missionaries fueled international concerns over gang violence in the crisis-stricken Caribbean nation.

Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries on Sunday said the 16 Americans and one Canadian were in Haiti to visit an orphanage when they were abducted near the capital, Port-au-Prince, a crime that security experts suspect was carried out by a gang known as 400 Mawozo.

Haitian authorities have remained silent about the incident, and the whereabouts of the group of missionaries, which includes women and children, remains unknown.

The streets of Port-au-Prince were empty on Monday morning, with shops and schools closed as part of the strike first called by transportation industry leaders – whose workers are among the most common targets of gang abductions.

Other private-sector businesses later said they were joining the strike to protest the constant kidnappings and the government’s systematic incapacity to address it.

Activists have called for street demonstrations against crime and kidnappings on Monday. A rally is also planned to protest an increase in service fees on cellphone-based money transfers, which have become a popular way to make payments.

The country’s precarious security situation has taken a turn for the worse since the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

The crisis has become a major issue for the United States, with large numbers of Haitian migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border last month, only to be met with a wave of deportations.

(Reporting by Gessika Thomas; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Paul Simao)