World
French prime minister unveils plans to tackle racism
Name it, act on it, sanction it.
That is the focus of a new drive against racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination of all kinds that was announced Monday by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
The four-year plan starts with educating youth with a required yearly trip to a Holocaust or other memorial site exemplifying the horrors that racism can produce. It includes training teachers and civil servants about discrimination and toughening the ability to punish those denounced for discrimination.
Arrest warrants will be issued to those who use freedom of expression for racist or anti-Semitic ends.
Unusually, the plan includes fighting discrimination against Roma.
“There will be no impunity for hate,” Borne said, presenting her plan with 80 measures at the Institute of the Arab World.
Tolerance is on the rise, “but hate has reinvented itself,” she said.
“Our first challenge is to look squarely at the reality of racism and anti-Semitism and cede nothing to those who falsify history, who rewrite our past, forgetting or deforming some pages,” Borne added.
Some people working for years in French associations against racism and discrimination are skeptical about the plan, reject it outright or are reserving their judgement.
Even Kaltoum Gachi, a co-president of the anti-racist MRAP organization — which contributed a proposal — told The Associated Press that her group “will be vigilant to see if, concretely, (the plan) bears fruit.”
France’s government has rolled out a succession of plans over five decades, the latest in 2018, to grapple with racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination. Still, the estimated number of victims who suffered as least one racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic attack was 1.2 million per year, according to the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights.
Social media and a rising far-right fearful of the disappearance of the nation’s Christian roots in an increasingly multi-cultural France have added new dimensions to the fight against racism. Generations of citizens from former colonies in mostly Muslim north and west Africa have over decades given the nation a new face.
Read more: Uproar in France over proposed limits on filming police
Gachi, the MRAP co-president and a lawyer, told those attending the presentation that 25 years ago, her younger brother Kamel failed in numerous requests for a job interview with an automaker — until he changed his name to Kevin.
Just on Monday, Gachi, a lawyer, said in an interview with The AP that she spoke with a youth with the same problem, a humiliating experience that leaves a lasting mark. She added that dignity, not just equality, is part of the equation.
Names, addresses and looks have long been a roadblock for people with origins outside France. Regular testing in private and public places of employment will be part of the new anti-discrimination effort, though the exact method is still being devised.
Borne said her plan will also offer victims of racism and discrimination the possibility to file complaints outside a police station, and in a “partially anonymous” way. She did not elaborate.
The plan will also make it “an aggravating circumstance” if someone in authority, such as a police officer, uses racist or discriminatory words to someone.
However, Borne’s plan dodges some sensitive areas, notably failing to directly tackle discrimination and racial profiling within the nation’s powerful police force.
Omer Mas Capitolin, a founder of the grassroots Community House for Supportive Development, said the measures are not sufficient.
“There is a denial of systemic discrimination,” not mentioned once in the plan, he told the AP.
His organization is one of a group of NGOs that launched a class action suit in 2021 against France’s powerful police in 2021, contending that it lawfully propagates a culture leading to systemic discrimination in identity checks. But for Mas Capitolin, who spoke on a personal level, alleged systemic discrimination goes beyond law enforcement to sectors like housing and jobs.
Mas Capitolin also criticized the timing for unveiling the plan on a day parliament opens debate on a hotly contested pension plan and on the eve of a planned protest march.
Wall Street falls ahead of mammoth week with Fed, earnings
Stocks are falling on Wall Street Monday ahead of a week full of potentially market-moving events, from decisions on interest rates around the world to earnings reports from the biggest U.S. companies.
The S&P 500 was 0.7% lower in midday trading, giving back some of its gains from last week when it reached its highest level since early December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 60 points, or 0.2%, at 33,917, as of 12:15 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% lower.
Markets have been veering recently on worries that the economy and corporate profits may be set for a steep drop-off, along with competing hopes that cooling inflation will get the Federal Reserve to take it easier on interest rates.
The central bank’s next decision on rates is coming Wednesday, and most investors expect it to announce an increase of just 0.25 percentage points. That would be the smallest increase since March, following a spate of hikes of 0.75 points and then a 0.50-point increase, and it would mean less added pressure on the economy.
Higher rates combat inflation by intentionally slowing the economy, while also dragging down on prices for investments. Inflation has been cooling since the summer amid last year's blizzard of rate hikes, but the economy has also been showing signs of concern.
The big question is whether Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday afternoon will give markets what they want to hear — hints that rate hikes will end soon and rate cuts may even be possible late this year — or stick to the Fed’s mantra that it plans to keep rates higher for longer, even if a modest recession hits.
“I think that they have no intention of cutting rates this year,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, adding that the Fed waits an average of roughly nine months after its last rate hike before cutting.
“They’ll reiterate that they don’t want to make the mistakes of the 1970s," he said, "but I think in the back of their minds, they’re going to say no matter which inflationary indicator you look at, they’re all heading in a stairstep downward pattern.”
Read more: Wall Street braces for earnings to get hit by inflation
Central banks for Europe and for the United Kingdom are also set to announce their latest increases for rates this week.
Beyond interest rates, more than 100 companies in the S&P 500 are scheduled this week to report how much profit they made in the last three months of 2022. Among them are tech heavyweights Apple, Amazon, and Google’s parent company. Because these companies are three of the four biggest on Wall Street by market value, their stock movements carry much more sway on the S&P 500 than others.
Apple's 1.4% drop Monday, for example, was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.
The only other stock that rivals them in size, Microsoft, shook Wall Street last week when it gave forecasts for upcoming results that raised worries about a slowdown in corporate spending on tech. Its stock fell 1.8% Monday.
Companies generally look to be on track to report slightly weaker profit for the end of 2022 than expected, according to a BofA Global Research report. That’s an indication that the strong January enjoyed by the S&P 500 so far is more about improving sentiment on Wall Street than about better fundamentals, strategist Savita Subramanian wrote.
Strategists at Morgan Stanley led by Michael Wilson warn tougher times may be ahead.
“The reality is that earnings are proving to be even worse than feared based on the data, especially as it relates to margins,” they wrote in a report. “Secondly, investors seem to have forgotten the cardinal rule of ‘Don’t Fight the Fed’. Perhaps this week will serve as a reminder.”
Later this week, the U.S. government will also give its latest monthly update on the job market. Hiring has remained remarkably resilient across the broad economy, even as housing and other corners weaken sharply under the weight of all the Fed’s rate hikes from last year.
Some big tech companies have announced high-profile layoffs after acknowledging they misread their boom coming out of the pandemic. But job cuts may be starting to spread to other areas of the economy. Hasbro and 3M last week announced layoffs.
All told, economists expect Friday’s report to show that U.S. employers added 187,500 more jobs than they cut during January. That would be a slowdown from December’s hiring of 223,000.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.54% from 3.51% late Friday. The two-year yield, which tends to move more on expectations of Fed actions, rose to 4.29% from 4.20%.
At least 22 dead in Benin bus crash
At least 22 people were killed and nearly two dozen injured when a public bus crashed into a truck in the center of Benin, the government on Monday.
The president’s director of communications posted on Facebook that first responders had immediately been dispatched to the scene of the crash that occurred near the town of Dassa-Zoume on Sunday.
“In this painful circumstance, the government expresses its sympathy to the whole nation and presents its deepest condolences to all the grieving families. This tragedy has once again reminded us that safety on our roads remains a constant challenge and urges us to take even stronger actions for a more effective safety of people and goods,” the director said. A crisis unit has been set up for relatives to get information.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. An investigation has been opened into the circumstances of the crash, said authorities.
Images and videos of the crash shared on social chat groups and seen by The Associated Press show the bus in flames and a charred body on the ground as one man tried to put out the fire with a jerry can of water.
About 21 people had burn injuries to varying degrees, said Benjamin Hounkpatin, the health minister during an interview with state television on Sunday. Speaking outside the hospital in Cotonou where the injured had been taken, he said they were alerted about the crash early evening Sunday and that health staff were doing everything they could.
“For the people who were burned we can't guarantee what will happen to them,” said Hounkpatin.
Transport accidents occur in Benin due to narrow roads in parts of the country, however, the death toll is not usually so high, according to locals. In July, three people were killed in a crash between a bus and a car near the town of Parakou, according to local media.
China accuses Washington of abusing export controls
China’s government on Monday criticized U.S. controls on technology exports as a trade violation, after Japan and the Netherlands agreed to join Washington in limiting Beijing’s access to materials to make advanced processor chips they say can be used in weapons.
The Foreign Ministry didn’t mention the latest development but accused Washington of abusing export controls and organizing other governments to “maintain its hegemony” and contain China.
The United States is trying to block China from acquiring the most powerful processor chips and technology that would help its fledgling industry develop the ability to make them. Washington says they can be used to make weapons and to facilitate the ruling Communist Party’s surveillance and human rights abuses.
“This seriously violates market principles and international trade order,” said a ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning. She said it “undermines the stability of global industrial and supply chains.”
A person familiar with the agreement told The Associated Press on Sunday that Japan and the Netherlands, important suppliers of technology and raw materials to make chips, agreed to join in U.S. controls.
Mao gave no indication how Beijing might respond to tighter export controls.
The Communist Party has invested billions of dollars to develop its own chip industry, but its vendors still need foreign manufacturing equipment, raw materials and other technology.
Industry experts say Chinese producers are improving but cannot make chips required for the most advanced smartphones and other products.
World Bank: Myanmar economy to grow 3%, dragged by conflict
Myanmar’s economy grew 3% last year and will likely achieve the same pace in 2023, but still lags far behind where it stood before the army seized power in early 2021, the World Bank said in a report released Monday.
The global development agency estimates Myanmar’s level of economic activity is still more than 10% below where it stood before the pandemic and the military takeover. On a per capita basis it is even further behind, it says.
If the global economy slows further as expected, exports and investment may weaken after recovering somewhat from the pandemic and the disruptions caused by civil conflict and foreign sanctions after the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government.
The reversion to military control after nearly a decade of quasi-civilian rule provoked mass protests that spun into armed revolt, on top of decades-long conflict between the government and armed ethnic groups.
“Economic activity has continued to be disrupted by persistent conflict, which has had devastating impacts on lives and livelihoods, and by electricity shortages," the report said.
Myanmar’s economy contracted by about 18% in 2021, after growing at a pace of 6% or more in the years before. The slow pace of expansion last year, from a very low base, suggests conditions remain weak.
“What’s surprising is that the growth hasn’t been higher,” Kim Alan Edwards, a World Bank senior economist, said in an online briefing. “Growth is nowhere near levels we saw in 2019.”
Like other emerging economies, Myanmar has had to contend with a weakening of its currency against the dollar. The kyat's value dropped by about a quarter in June-December last year and has less than half the value it had two years earlier. That makes imports of vital commodities like oil much more expensive in local terms.
Combined with higher prices for many commodities including oil and gas, Myanmar has seen inflation hit nearly 20% as of July, the report said.
Read more: Myanmar opium cultivation surged 33% amid violence, UN finds
“While the kyat has stabilized in recent months, foreign currency shortages persist, which together with onerous trade restrictions have affected businesses’ ability to supply of a range of imported products," it said.
The World Bank economists said controls imposed by the central bank to support the kyat and protect foreign exchange reserves have been relaxed, making it easier for exporters to obtain credit or retain their earnings. But many businesses and people are forced to comply with orders to convert foreign currency into kyat at the official rate of 2,100 kyats per dollar, when the market value is about 2,800 kyats.
The report says agriculture and garment manufacturing have recovered and some businesses are finding ways to operate by using informal payments and trade channels. The reopening of Myanmar's trade routes with China also has helped.
But risks have been heightened by security issues, due to the civil conflict, that add to costs and delays for transporting goods.
“There are no easy fixes to Myanmar's situation," Edwards said, noting a lack of transparency that obscures what is going on. “Rules and regulations can change anytime and can favor some and not others."
Suicide bomber kills 59, wounds over 150 at Pakistan mosque
A suicide bomber struck a crowded mosque inside a police compound in Pakistan on Monday, causing the roof to collapse and killing at least 59 people and wounding more than 150 others, officials said.
Most of the casualties were police officers. It was not clear how the bomber was able to slip into the walled compound, which houses the police headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar and is itself located in a high-security zone with other government buildings.
Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The main spokesman for the militant group was not immediately available for comment.
"The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. This is no less than an attack on Pakistan,” tweeted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who visited the wounded in Peshawar and vowed “stern action” against those behind the bombing. He expressed his condolences to families of the victims, saying their pain ”cannot be described in words."
Pakistan, which is mostly Sunni Muslim, has seen a surge in militant attacks since November, when the Pakistani Taliban ended their cease-fire with government forces.
Earlier this month, in another attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, a gunman shot and killed two intelligence officers, including the director of the counterterrorism wing of the country’s military-based spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence. Security officials said Monday the gunman was traced and killed in a shootout in the northwest near the Afghan border.
Monday's assault on a Sunni mosque inside the police facility was one of the deadliest attacks on security forces in recent years.
The militant group, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban. The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan in the past 15 years, seeking stricter enforcement of Islamic laws, the release of its members in government custody and a reduction in the Pakistani military presence in areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province it has long used as its base.
More than 300 worshippers were praying in the mosque, with more approaching, when the bomber set off his explosives vest. Many were injured when the roof came down, according to Zafar Khan, a police officer, and rescuers had to remove mounds of debris to reach worshippers still trapped under the rubble.
Meena Gul, who was in the mosque when the bomb went off, said he doesn’t know how he survived unhurt. The 38-year-old police officer said he heard cries and screams after the blast.
Mohammad Asim, a spokesman at the main government hospital in Peshawar, put the death toll at 59, with 157 others wounded. Police official Siddique Khan the bomber blew himself up while among the worshippers.
Senior police and government officials attended the funerals of 30 police officers and arrangements to bury the rest were being made. Coffins were wrapped in the Pakistani flag their bodies were later handed over to relatives for burials.
Read more: Roadside bomb kills 6 people in north Afghanistan: Taliban
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Pakistani Taliban have a strong presence, and the city has been the scene of frequent militant attacks.
The Afghan Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops pulled out of the country after 20 years of war.
The Pakistani government's truce with the TTP ended as the country was still contending with unprecedented flooding that killed 1,739 people, destroyed more than 2 million homes, and at one point submerged as much as a third of the country.
Mohmand, of the militant organization, said a fighter carried out the attack to avenge the killing of Abdul Wali, who was widely known as Omar Khalid Khurasani, and was killed in neighboring Afghanistan’s Paktika province in August 2022.
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was “saddened to learn that numerous people lost their lives and many others were injured by an explosion at a mosque in Peshawar” and condemned attacks on worshippers as contrary to the teachings of Islam.
Condemnations also came from the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad, as well as the U.S. Embassy, adding that "The United States stands with Pakistan in condemning all forms of terrorism.”
Cash-strapped Pakistan faces a severe economic crisis and is seeking a crucial installment of $1.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund — part of its $6 billion bailout package — to avoid default. Talks with the IMF on reviving the bailout have stalled in the past months.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan called the bombing a “terrorist suicide attack.” He tweeted: “My prayers & condolences go to victims families. It is imperative we improve our intelligence gathering & properly equip our police forces to combat the growing threat of terrorism.”
Sharif’s government came to power in April after Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Khan has since campaigned for early elections, claiming his ouster was illegal and part of a plot backed by the United States. Washington and Sharif dismiss Khan's claims.
Palestinians say Israeli troops kill man in West Bank
Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in a flashpoint city in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The killing marks the latest bloodshed in spiraling violence that comes as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the region.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the man, Nassim Abu Fouda, 26, was shot in Hebron, often a center of clashes between the Israeli military and Palestinians.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has spiked in recent days, with an Israeli military raid on a militant stronghold in the West Bank city of Jenin last week killing 10, most of them militants, and a Palestinian shooting attack in an east Jerusalem Jewish settlement that killed seven Israelis.
Read more: Israel to 'strengthen' settlements after shooting attacks
Unrest has continued in the ensuing days, prompting Israel to approve a series of punitive steps against the Palestinians and ratcheting up tensions just as Blinken begins meetings with leaders later in the day.
The violence comes after months of Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank, which were launched after a wave of Palestinians attacks against Israelis in the spring of 2022 that killed 19 people. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to figures from the Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Another 10 Israelis were killed later last year, raising the 2022 Israeli death toll to 29.
Israel says that most of those killed have been militants but others — including youths protesting the incursions and other people not involved in confrontations — have also been killed. Israel says the military raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks while the Palestinians view them as further entrenchment of Israel’s open-ended, 55-year occupation.
The bloodshed has spiked this month, during the first weeks of Israel's new far-right government, which has promised to take a tough stance against the Palestinians and ramp up settlement construction. Monday's death brings the toll of Palestinians killed this month to 35.
Blinken's visit, which was planned before the flare-up, was expected to be fraught with tension over differences between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government, which is made up of settlement supporters. He will now need to contend with an additional challenge during his trip, trying to restore calm even as violence persists.
After the Jenin raid, the Palestinians said they would cancel security coordination with Israel and after attacks against Israelis intensified, Israel said it would beef up Jewish settlements in the West Bank, among other steps.
Israeli Army Radio reported late Sunday that the government was also set to approve a rogue outpost deep inside the West Bank, and speed up approval for other such small settlements.
Israel also arrested 42 Palestinians, some relatives of the Jerusalem attacker, in its investigation into the attack. And the firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he has ordered authorities to demolish illegally built Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem in response to the attack.
Ben-Gvir called it “one step among a series of important steps for governance and for the war on terror and we need more steps in this war.”
Read more: Palestinian teen wounds 2, day after 7 killed in Jerusalem
Palestinian residents of the city’s eastern sector say systemic housing discrimination means they are rarely granted building permits, prompting them to build illegally.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians claim for their hoped-for independent state. Some 500,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank in dozens of settlements and outposts, some made up of just a few mobile homes and others sprawling cities with malls and public transit. The Palestinians and much of the international community view settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto in Moscow on official visit
Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has reached Moscow. He is currently on a two-day official visit, on invitation of his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was received by senior officials of the Russian foreign ministry, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Russia Shafqat Ali Khan and other embassy officials on Sunday (January 29, 2023) upon his arrival in Moscow, reports Pakistani newspaper Dawn.
Read more: Pakistan's premier apologizes to nation for power outage
The two foreign ministers are scheduled to meet today for official talks.
The Pakistani foreign minister was quoted by Dawn as saying: “I’ve been invited to speak at the international luncheon of the annual National Prayer Breakfast and will make an in-and-out trip for that.”
Meanwhile, as part of Pakistan’s effort to re-engage with the US, the foreign minister and Commerce Minister Syed Naveed Qamar are expected to visit Washington soon.
Read more: Pakistan orders malls to close early amid economic crisis
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is expected to visit New York to attend a UN-sponsored conference on Muslim women, being held on Pakistan’s initiative on March 8. He is also likely to attend another UN event in New York on March 15 to commemorate the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, as per Pakistani media report.
Peru's protest 'deactivators' run toward tear gas to stop it
When police fire tear gas at protesters demanding the resignation of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, most run away.
A few, though, run toward the gas canisters as quickly as possible — to neutralize them.
These are the “deactivators.” Donning gas masks, safety goggles and thick gloves, these volunteers grab the hot canisters and toss them inside large plastic bottles filled with a mixture of water, baking soda and vinegar.
The deactivators made their debut in Peru street protests in 2020, inspired by protesters in Hong Kong who in 2019 unveiled new strategies to counteract the eye-stinging, breath-stealing effects of tear gas. With protesters in Lima facing a nearly daily fusillade of tear gas, more people have joined the ranks of deactivators trying to shield them and keep the demonstrations going.
Read more: Anger in rural areas fuel protests against Peru government
Peruvians have been protesting since early December, when former President Pedro Castillo was impeached after a failed attempt to dissolve Congress. His vice president, Boluarte, immediately took over — and has faced strong opposition ever since.
Fifty-eight people have died in connection with the unrest, including one police officer. Forty-six of the deaths occurred during direct clashes between protesters and police.
The protests have exposed deep divisions in the country between the urban elites and the rural poor. Demonstrations were first largely concentrated in the south, a long-neglected region of Peru that felt a particular kinship to Castillo’s humble background as a rural teacher from the Andean highlands. But earlier this month, thousands descended on Peru's capital, and police met them with tear gas. Lots and lots of tear gas.
On Thursday, as protesters gathered in downtown Lima, Alexander Gutiérrez Padilla, 45, was giving a brief course to anyone who would listen around Plaza San Martín about how to mix vinegar and baking soda into the water and how to grab the tear gas canisters most efficiently.
“If we don’t deactivate, people disperse and the protest breaks,” Gutiérrez said. “That’s why we’re pillars of this demonstration.”
Next to him was Wilfredo Huertas Vidal, 25, who has taken it upon himself to collect donations to buy gloves and other protective equipment and hand them out to those who want to help.
“Who wants gloves? Who wants gloves?” he yelled as he stood next to several large bottles of water, gas masks and eye goggles.
When protesters descended on Lima earlier this month, old networks were reactivated. A tactic first seen in Peru in late 2020 during protests against then-President Manuel Merino resurfaced.
Vladimir Molina, 34, who participated in the 2020 protests, now runs what he calls a “brigade.” It consists of around 60 people, including paramedics, deactivators and “front-line” activists who stand in the middle of protesters and police with shields, in an effort to block any pellets or tear gas police may fire into the crowd.
Read more: Peru judge orders 18-month detention for ousted president
“Every day more and more people are joining,” Molina said. Interest in his group is so great that he’s made it a requirement for anyone who wants to join to have their own equipment.
By tossing the hot tear gas cartridges into the water solution, “what they do is extinguish the pyrotechnical charge so the tear gas cannot come out anymore,” said Sven Eric Jordt, a professor of anesthesiology at Duke University.
Water alone should achieve what the protesters want, although the carbon dioxide created by mixing vinegar and baking soda could “form a foam bath that suffocates the charge” further, Jordt speculated.
It may be only a matter of time before authorities deploy methods to blunt the deactivators' effectiveness. Manufacturers are now developing tear gas with plastic cartridges that stick to the road so it “can’t be lifted up anymore,” Jordt said.
Fearful of being targeted by police and prosecutors, many of the deactivators prefer to remain anonymous, keeping their faces covered even when there’s no tear gas around.
Boluarte has given strong backing to law enforcement, and the government recently announced a bonus for police officers. Boluarte has characterized the work of police controlling the Lima protests as “immaculate,” despite their often indiscriminate firing of tear gas and pellets. In contrast, she says the demonstrations are violent and financed by drug-trafficking rings and illegal miners.
Andrea Fernández, 22, is new to deactivating tear gas.
“The truth is I love the adrenaline,” Fernández said shortly after grabbing a pair of gloves from Huertas and listening to the instructions closely.
She said she hadn’t been really interested in the country’s political crisis at first. Then the deaths started piling up.
“There are a lot of farmers who’ve come from lots of parts of Peru and they come here to march, face-to-face, but don’t have the necessary protection,” Fernández said.
Felix Davillo, 37, also says the casualties pushed him to become a deactivator.
“I made this decision for all the death that is going on in Puno right now,” Davillo said, referring to a region in Peru that has experienced some of the deadliest protests.
A general lack of protective equipment has also meant protesters have been injured by the widespread use of less lethal weapons.
From January 19 to 24, Doctors Without Borders treated 73 patients at the Lima protests suffering from exposure to tear gas, pellet wounds, contusions or psychological distress, the non-profit organization said.
The deactivators' increased chance of injury doesn’t scare Julio Incarocas Beliz, who grabbed one of the big water bottles in the plaza for his first day trying to diffuse tear gas.
“I served in the military and I’ve never been afraid,“ Incarocas, 28, said. “I’m fighting for my homeland.”
Israeli-Palestinian cauldron tests US as Blinken visits
An alarming spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence and sharp responses by both sides are testing the Biden administration as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plunges into a cauldron of deepening mistrust and anger on visits to Israel and the West Bank this week.
What had already been expected to be a trip fraught with tension over differences between the administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government has grown significantly more complicated over the past four days with a spate of deadly incidents. Blinken’s high-wire diplomatic act begins on Monday after he completes a brief visit to Egypt that has been almost entirely overshadowed by the deteriorating security situation in Israel and the West Bank.
U.S. officials say the main theme of Blinken’s conversations with Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will be “de-escalation.” Yet Blinken will arrive in Israel just a day after Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet announced a series of punitive measures against Palestinians in response to a weekend of deadly shootings in which Palestinian attackers killed seven Israelis and wounded five others in Jerusalem. Those shootings followed a deadly Israeli raid in the West Bank on Thursday that killed 10 Palestinians, most of them militants.
The violence has made January one of the bloodiest months in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem in several years. While Blinken’s trip has been planned for several weeks and will follow visits by President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and CIA Director Willian Burns, it will be the highest-level U.S. engagement with Netanyahu since he retook power last month and the first since the surge in violence.
Read more: Over 90 nations express ‘deep concern’ at Israeli punitive measure against Palestinians
Already contending with the new Israeli government’s far-right policies and its opposition to a two-state resolution to the long-running conflict, U.S. officials have yet to weigh in on the retaliatory steps that include sealing and demolishing the homes of Palestinian attackers, canceling social security benefits for their families and handing out more weapons to Israeli civilians.
Perhaps most alarming was Netanyahu's vague promise to “strengthen” Israel's West Bank settlements, built on occupied land the Palestinians claim as the heartland of a future state. Bezalel Smotrich, an ultranationalist Cabinet minister whom Netanyahu has placed in charge of settlement policy, said he would seek new construction in a strategic section of the West Bank called E1. The U.S. has repeatedly blocked previous attempts by Israel to develop the area.
U.S. officials have, however, criticized Abbas’ decision to suspend Palestinian security cooperation with Israel in the wake of the West Bank raid.
“We want to get the parties to not cease security cooperation but to really enhance the security coordination,” said Barbara Leaf, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East. “We are urging de-escalation and a calming of the situation.”
Ahead of his meeting with Blinken, Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel’s response is not intended to exacerbate tensions.
“We are not seeking an escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario,” Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting. “Our answer to terrorism is a heavy hand and a strong, swift and precise response.”
The Palestinians and some human rights groups believe the Israeli retaliation, including the demolition of homes of attackers' families, amounts to collective punishment and is illegal under international law. The turmoil has added yet another item to Blinken’s lengthy diplomatic agenda that was already set to include Russia’s war on Ukraine, tensions with Iran and crises in Lebanon and Syria; all of which weigh heavily in the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Easing strains on those issues, or at least averting new ones, are central to Blinken’s mission despite Netanyahu's opposition to two of Biden’s main Mideast priorities: reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But, with both of those matters stalled and little hope of any resumption in negotiations, the administration is attempting just to keep the concepts on life support.
In the meantime, the administration has resolved to improve ties with the Palestinians that former President Donald Trump had severed. Although it has resumed suspended U.S. assistance, its goal of re-opening the American consulate in Jerusalem to deal with Palestinian issues and the possibility of allowing the Palestinians to re-open their diplomatic mission in Washington have been blocked by a combination of Israeli opposition and U.S. legal hurdles. Blinken is unlikely to be able to offer the Palestinians any sign of progress on either of those matters, while pressing the case for further political reform in the Palestinian Authority.
The U.S. has also remained silent on Netanyahu’s proposed sweeping changes to Israel’s judicial system, which would allow lawmakers to overrule decisions by the Supreme Court. Recent weeks have seen mass protests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv over the proposals that critics say would badly damage Israel’s democratic standing.
Read more: Palestinian teen wounds 2, day after 7 killed in Jerusalem
“It’s clear that this issue of the judicial legislation packages is one that’s sparked intense, intense discussion, debate within Israeli society,” said Leaf. “It’s clearly a measure of the vibrancy of the democracy that this is being contested so clearly up and down across segments of Israeli society.”
While she and other U.S. officials have spoken of the importance of “shared values” with Israel, they have steered clear of commenting on what they regard as a purely domestic issue.
“But now it became an issue” because of its proposed speed and scope, the public outcry, and growing concern among American Jewish leaders and members of Congress, said Eytan Gilboa, a U.S.-Israel expert at Bar-Ilan University.
“There is much confusion about what the Israeli government is up to,” he said. “If for Netanyahu Iran is the major issue, by pushing the judicial reform, he is diverting the attention from the number one, more critical issue of Iran’s nuclear program.”