São Paulo – Qatari music, dancing, art and cuisine will be on show for São Paulo audiences from this Thursday (18th) until next Sunday (21st) at the city’s Villa Lobos Park. The attractions are part of the Qatari Week SP, which will bring a sample of the Gulf country’s cultural and social life to Brazil.
Aurea Santos/ANBA
Al-Hajri: best artists were picked to come to Brazil
“Over the next few days we will present part of the culture of Qatar. We will also present other parts in upcoming events,” said Faleh Al-Hajri, the Qatari deputy minister of Culture during a visit to the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce this Wednesday (17th). Al-Hajri, Rafah Barakat, the head of the Brazil-Qatar 2014 Year of Culture, and a delegation of 16 artists were welcomed by the Arab Chamber’s CEO Michel Alaby and Culture director Silvia Antibas.
“The Arab Chamber has implemented a very active Culture department because it is aware of the importance of showcasing the culture of Arab countries in order to strengthen ties with Brazil,” said Antibas. Alaby offered the Arab Chamber’s full support to the Year of Culture events.
The deputy minister said that the best artists in her country have been chosen to come to Brazil, and music is a highpoint. “Our music is different. Our artists have created many beautiful works, and Qatari food will also be showcased during the event. Our music will sound amazing to the Brazilian people. It resembles samba, but with an Arab twist to it,” she said.
According to Barakat, the Qatari culture week took three months to prepare. “We will display a lot of Qatar’s culture: how coffee is prepared, the handicraft, a workshop about wedding parties. We will serve food and showcase jewels. We will hold many fun activities, such as henna painting and show cooking,” she said.
Aurea Santos/ANBA
Delegation of artists paid visit to the Arab Chamber
She also underscored how successful the Year of Culture activities are being in other Brazilian cities. “We have had great success in Belém, Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. Now, in São Paulo, we want more and more,” she remarked. The week in São Paulo is part of the Brazil-Qatar 2014 Year of Culture, involving similar actions in various municipalities across Brazil.
Barakat also expounded on the interest her country’s culture commands from Brazilians. “People are very curious about how Arab weddings take place. They ask a lot of questions. We have held seminars at schools in Belém and it was a very interesting experience to us. We discussed women in Qatar. People think that in Qatar, all women do is tend to children, but our women work. I, for one, am the manager of a big project involving Qatar and Brazil,” she said.
Science for students
Another event of the Brazil-Qatar 2014 Year of Culture is set to begin this month in the state of São Paulo: Programa 1001 Invenções (Portuguese for 1001 Inventions Program), an educational project showing the science produced by Ancient Arab and Islamic civilizations.
The program will be launched in Brazil on the 23rd this month at São Paulo’s Instituto Butantã, with the attendance of state governor Geraldo Alckmin (affiliated with political party PSDB). The educational project is designed to showcase inventions created by Muslims over 1,000 years ago, and tell the story of these creations and their creators.
“There will be a live presentation where a group of volunteers will play the role of scientists and discuss Arab inventions of the past,” said Malak Hassan, the projects specialist for the Qatar Museums Authority, which organizes the Year of Culture.
Following the guests-only launch event, the program’s presentations will be taken to several state schools.
Service
Qatari Week SP
September 18th to 21st
Villa-Lobos Park
Avenida Professor Fonseca Rodrigues, 2001 – Alto dos Pinheiros, São Paulo – SP
The activities are free of charge and will take place from 11am to 5pm
On Saturday, women and their allies will take to the streets in cities around the world for the third annual Women’s March.
But this year, the leaders of Women’s March Inc. — one of the organizations that grew out of the original march, and the most visible public face of the march today — are facing calls to step down. The reasons include criticisms of their association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and allegations that they made anti-Semitic remarks in planning meetings.
Women’s March Inc. is a national organization led by four activists from New York City — Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland — who helped organize the first march in Washington, DC, in 2017. The group also has local chapters that are planning marches in cities around the country this year, though other local marches are not affiliated with Women’s March Inc.
The controversy has contributed to the cancellation of at least one city march, and a number of progressive groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, have dropped their partnerships with the Women’s March, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee appears to have been removed from a list of partners on the Women’s March website.
Women’s March Inc. co-chairs Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland denied allegations of anti-Semitism in an appearance on The View on Monday. Asked by co-host Meghan McCain why she would publicly associate with Farrakhan, given his anti-Semitic remarks, Mallory said, “I don’t agree with many of Minister Farrakhan’s statements.”
“Do you condemn them?” McCain asked.
“I don’t agree with these statements,” Mallory reiterated.
She also resisted calls to step down. “I am willing to lead until my term at Women’s March is up,” she said.
“Women’s March exists to fight all forms of oppression and bigotry, including anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, white supremacy, ableism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, classism, and ageism,” Women’s March Inc. said in a statement to Vox, in response to a question about groups dropping partnerships. “That work continues with the release of our Women’s Agenda and lobby day this week in Washington, and our anniversary Marches happening all over the country this Saturday.”
The future of Women’s March Inc., and of women’s marches around the country, may be in doubt. But the impact of the Women’s March as a broader movement on American politics endures.
The controversies have caused some to distance themselves from the Women’s March
Women’s March Inc. is no stranger to controversy, having weathered debates over representation of women of color and the inclusion (or exclusion) of a variety of groups from its official platform. But criticism of the group intensified in March 2018 when Mallory attended a Nation of Islam event at which Farrakhan made anti-Semitic remarks. In November, as controversy grew over the issue, Teresa Shook, whose 2016 Facebook post kicked off the first march, called on Mallory and the other co-chairs of Women’s March Inc. to step down.
Then in December, Leah McSweeney and Jacob Siegel at Tablet reported that, according to others involved in planning the march, Mallory and fellow Women’s March Inc. co-chair Carmen Perez had made anti-Semitic comments themselves. At a meeting to plan the first Women’s March, Mallory and Perez “asserted that Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people,” sources told Tablet.
Mallory and the Women’s March have denied these allegations. But the Tablet report, as well as Mallory’s association with Farrakhan, has led some groups to drop their affiliation with Women’s March Inc.
In December, the Washington state chapter of the Women’s March announced that it would disband and affiliate with a different progressive group, Smart Politics. Organizers in Spokane, Washington, still plan to hold a march.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, organizers of the New Orleans Women’s March announced they were canceling this Saturday’s event.
“Many of the sister marches have asked the leaders of Women’s March Inc. to resign but as of today, they have yet to do so,” said the National Organization for Women’s Baton Rouge chapter, which organized the New Orleans march. “The controversy is dampening efforts of sister marches to fundraise, enlist involvement, [and] find sponsors, and attendee numbers have drastically declined this year. New Orleans is no exception.”
A number of progressive organizations, from the SPLC to Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, have dropped their affiliations with Women’s March Inc. over concerns about anti-Semitism, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
“Moms Demand Action isn’t an official sponsor of the Women’s March, but plenty of chapters have chosen to participate in the locally organized events,” Taylor Maxwell, a spokesperson for Moms Demand Action, told Vox. The SPLC has not responded to Vox’s request for comment.
The DNC, once listed as a march sponsor on the Women’s March Inc. website, no longer appears there, according to CNN.
“The DNC stands in solidarity with all those fighting for women’s rights and holding the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers across the country accountable,” said DNC deputy communications director Sabrina Singh in a statement to Vox. “Women are on the front lines of fighting back against this administration and are the core of our Democratic Party.”
Asked if the relationship between the DNC and the Women’s March had changed from last year to this year, a DNC official declined to comment further.
Women’s activism today is about more than marches
Women’s March Inc. has been working to repair relationships with the Jewish community. According to the Washington Post, since anti-Semitism charges were first leveled at the organization, it has added three Jewish women to its steering committee and updated its platform to include a message of support for Jewish women.
It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to convince those concerned about the anti-Semitism allegations to turn out to march on Saturday. Sociology professor Dana R. Fisher, who studies protest movements, told the Postthat turnout in Washington, DC, will probably number in the tens of thousands, far fewer than the estimated 470,000 people who attended the first Women’s March following the inauguration of President Trump in 2017.
But those who marched in 2017 may also be engaging in other forms of activism. Instead of a march on Saturday, Women’s March Chicago has organized Operation Activation, which encourages women and their allies to participate in community actions like neighborhood cleanups and postcard-writing campaigns advocating for progressive legislation. The decision to hold a day of action instead of a march wasn’t inspired by controversy around Women’s March Inc., according to a Women’s March Chicago fact sheet provided to Vox. Rather, the Chicago group chose to hold a march in October 2018 to mobilize voters for the midterm elections, and decided not to host two marches back to back. The group plans to march again in 2020.
And in addition to the march on Saturday, Women’s March Inc. is releasing a federal policy platform called the Women’s Agenda and organizing a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill on Friday in support of Medicare-for-all.
Through their platform, their marches, and their Women’s Convention in October 2017 in Detroit, the Women’s March organizers changed the mainstream conversation around feminism and left-wing politics in America, prompting a wider swath of women than ever before to think about women’s rights as part of a larger set of civil rights, including racial and economic justice.
That conversation will no doubt continue at marches on Saturday. But it will also continue at community actions and other events throughout the year — and in the halls of Congress, where more women than ever before now have the opportunity to craft legislation that affects all Americans.
Whatever happens in the streets on Saturday, the legacy of the women who marched all over the world in 2017 will persist for a long time to come.
An enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in eastern India Friday near the coastal city of Puri, impacting an area that’s home to tens of millions of people.
The storm has since weakened but will remain a dangerous system as it moves up India’s east coast toward Bangladesh, where 2.1 million people are expected to be evacuated, according to CNN. Flash flooding and potentially deadly landslides may occur. So far, three deaths have been reported due to the storm. Overall, the United Nations warns that 28 million people live in the path of the storm.
A teenager was killed when a tree came crashing down on him in Puri. Flying debris from a concrete structure hit a woman in Nayagarh district. In Kendrapara, a 65-year-old woman died after suspected heart attack at a cyclone shelter.
Fani strengthened over ideal conditions for cyclone formation. NASA Earth Observatory
Tropical cyclones are the exact same weather phenomenon as hurricanes. And the winds are just one of the risks they bring.
This monster storm also brought with it a storm surge of 13 feet in some areas, according to the Weather Channel. Storm surge is a literal wall of water a cyclone pushes onshore, and it tends to be the deadliest feature of a cyclone. It can also be very destructive (as we saw with Hurricane Sandy in 2012).
In preparation for Cyclone Fani, more than a million people were evacuated in coastal areas in the Indian state Odisha, where the storm hit. Some 4,000 shelters were set up in the region. Train stations and airports were closed.
Containers of Moderna vaccines donated by the U.S. arrived in Bogota, Colombia, on July 25.
Leonardo Munoz/AFP via Getty Images
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Leonardo Munoz/AFP via Getty Images
Containers of Moderna vaccines donated by the U.S. arrived in Bogota, Colombia, on July 25.
Leonardo Munoz/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. is on track to deliver 110 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to more than 50 countries from Afghanistan to Zambia, two officials told NPR — a milestone that President Biden is expected to formally announce at the White House Tuesday.
But these initial U.S. donated doses are just a first step for the projected 11 billion vaccines needed to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population and bring the pandemic under control, according to the World Health Organization.
And providing doses to other countries is a quasi-Herculean task. “Sharing vaccine doses isn’t quite as easy as just putting them on a plane and calling somebody at the other end and telling them when they’ll arrive,” says Gayle Smith, the global COVID response coordinator at the State Department.
There have been some delays. Biden first announced that the U.S. would distribute 80 million doses to countries in need by the end of June, only to later say the goal had simply been to “allocate” them by the end of June.
Legal and regulatory hurdles loom for such sophisticated medical goods, Smith explains — both for the U.S. to export them and for countries to receive them. And it’s an urgent matter: Doses must be distributed before their expiration date, with cold chains set up to keep them from spoiling. Solutions have to be devised country by country, sometimes with elaborate legal agreements.
On this global stage, the Biden administration can’t call all the shots. “In some countries it’s actually required … to take new laws to their parliaments so they can accept these vaccines, so it’s a complicated logistical exercise, but I think we’ve shown it’s entirely doable,” Smith said in an interview with NPR.
These first 100 million deliveries reflect Biden’s effort to establish the U.S. as “the world’s arsenal of vaccines” and are essentially a warm-up for the hundreds of millions of shots that the U.S. has pledged to deliver later this year and next year.
The number of doses delivered so far puts the U.S. ahead of every other country making donations, but the pace of the shipments is much slower than it should be, says Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.
“When the world needs 10 billion doses to get to where we need to go, it puts that in context,” he said. “We’re a hundred times off where we need to be.”
And certain parts of the world are severely lacking in vaccines. The breakdown of distribution at this point illustrates how far many countries are from any meaningful level of protection. Worldwide, fewer than 1% of vaccines have gone to people in low-income countries, while more than 80% have been given to people in high- and upper middle-income countries.
More shots, more money
As the highly contagious delta variant surges, global health experts are calling for a bigger investment in the pandemic response.
“Right now it doesn’t seem like the effort is matching the level of crisis that some parts of the world are seeing,” says Jenny Ottenhoff, senior policy director for global health at the ONE Campaign.
The speed with which those doses arrive could determine the trajectory of the pandemic — and how many more people will die.
The numbers are daunting. At least 800,000 COVID fatalities are projected in the next two months, according to new estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
In an open letter released on Tuesday, a group of prominent global health experts write that the Biden administration and its G-7 allies have “taken important but modest steps to close the global vaccine gap,” which still “fall far short of the true scale and urgency required.”
The letter urges the White House to quickly ramp up U.S. donations by at least 1 billion doses by mid-2022, strengthen global coordination of vaccine supply chains and pour resources into ensuring that “doses are translated into vaccinations.”
A man walks past donated Johnson & Johnson vaccines after their arrival at the Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia on July 30 — the first batch of 1 million shots.
Heng Sinith/AP
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Heng Sinith/AP
A man walks past donated Johnson & Johnson vaccines after their arrival at the Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia on July 30 — the first batch of 1 million shots.
Heng Sinith/AP
Logistics challenges loom
As the Biden administration prepares to move hundreds of millions of more doses, the challenges in delivering these first 100 million doses should serve as a wake-up call, says Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development who studies health care supply chains.
“Just having surplus doses and a plan on how to allocate them is not sufficient. It requires a lot of other things to fall in place,” says Yadav. “Similar types of logistical challenges will remain in place for that massive quantity. And so the bigger question is, are we now planning based on what we’ve learned?”
In July, the White House released a “framework” for the global pandemic response, but the Biden administration still seems to lack the kind of “superstructure” needed to manage the complex demands of the global vaccination campaign, says Stephen Morrison at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who also signed the letter.
“It’s been somewhat ad hoc,” he says. “We need to be staffed up at a higher level with a command type approach similar to what we’ve taken domestically, and we don’t have that yet.”
The U.S. has the opportunity to take on a “more engaged” role with the global vaccination rollout, says Yadav. But that would require a much larger investment in the federal agencies currently orchestrating the vaccine sharing programs, he said.
A health worker vaccines a woman in Thimpu, Bhutan on July 26.
Upasana Dahal/AFP via Getty Images
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Upasana Dahal/AFP via Getty Images
A health worker vaccines a woman in Thimpu, Bhutan on July 26.
Upasana Dahal/AFP via Getty Images
White House plans to “accelerate, accelerate, accelerate”
Biden is expected to talk about coming plans to boost shipments. The U.S. announced earlier this year that it secured 500 million Pfizer doses to distribute to poorer countries. That distribution is beginning in earnest this month. Smith says the aim is to “accelerate, accelerate, accelerate” to get more vaccines to more people faster.
“I don’t want to understate in any way how proud all of us are that we not only hit the 80 million but we are at 110,” says Smith. “But I think none of us thinks that we can check the box now. There’s still a massive amount to do. This last quarter of 2021 is critical. So we’ve got to keep going, and we’ve got to do more in any possible way we can do it.”
As long as the virus is moving faster than the drive to vaccinate the world, it is winning, she says.
And that puts more pressure on the Biden administration. “Without U.S. leadership, I don’t see another plausible pathway where we’re going to turn the corner on this pandemic any time in the next six, 12 or 18 months,” says Udayakumar.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy on Saturday said he’d wager his own home on Republicans reclaiming a House majority in 2022.
“We’re going to get the majority back. We’re five seats away,” he told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“I would bet my house. My personal house. Don’t tell my wife, but I will bet it,” he continued. “This is the smallest majority the Democrats have had in 100 years.”
In the 2020 elections, Democrats retained control of the House. Democrats now have a slim majority in the lower chamber, and Republicans need to flip just five seats to regain control. Democrats also took back the Senate from the Republicans, giving President Joe Biden a Democratic stronghold in Congress.
McCarthy also said there’s “not a chance” the Republicans will lose in 2022.
Since the days surrounding Biden’s formal inauguration into office, other Republicans have also begun to clamor about a potential GOP win in 2022.
In an interview with Politico, Graham said he planned to meet with Trump to discuss the future of the GOP and his role in it.
“I’m going to try and convince him that we can’t get there without you, but you can’t keep the Trump movement going without the GOP united,” Graham said.
“If we come back in 2022, then, it’s an affirmation of your policies,” he said about Trump. “But if we lose again in 2022, the narrative is going to continue that not only you lost the White House, but the Republican Party is in a bad spot.”
McCarthy’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fired back at McCarthy’s remarks in a statement to Insider:
“No one should be surprised the Minority Leader is willing to wager his home,” said Robyn Patterson, deputy communications director. “McCarthy doesn’t have much to give after sacrificing his integrity trying to cancel $1,400 survival checks for Americans trying to make ends meet during a deadly pandemic.”
Democrats and Republicans are once again clashing on the contents of the next stimulus bill. House Democrats this weekend approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package containing $1,400 stimulus checks for Americans.
McCarthy, the House minority leader, was one of the bill’s dissenters, saying on the House floor that its price tag was untenable.
“The Democrats’ spending bill is too costly, too corrupt, and too liberal for the country,” the California Republican said.
Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest. And bye the way, wasn’t the woman in charge of prosecuting Jerome Corsi (who I do not know) in charge of “legal” at the corrupt Clinton Foundation? A total Witch Hunt…
“Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton Foundation be listed at the top of the Report?” he wrote.
….Will Robert Mueller’s big time conflicts of interest be listed at the top of his Republicans only Report. Will Andrew Weissman’s horrible and vicious prosecutorial past be listed in the Report. He wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies, only to be……..
…..overturned, 9-0, in the United States Supreme Court. Doing same thing to people now. Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton….
….Foundation be listed at the top of the Report? Will the scathing document written about Lyin’ James Comey, by the man in charge of the case, Rod Rosenstein (who also signed the FISA Warrant), be a big part of the Report? Isn’t Rod therefore totally conflicted? Will all of….
The tweets come on what is expected to be a momentous day in Mueller’s long-running investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
Trump’s tweets break a relatively brief period of silence on the Mueller probe during memorial services for former President George H.W. Bush.
For the second time in recent weeks, the president turned his fire on Rosenstein. He asked if the No. 2 Justice Department official’s “scathing document written about Lyin’ James Comey” will be included in Mueller’s final report on the probe.
Referring to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant signed by Rosenstein against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, Trump asked, “isn’t Rod therefore totally conflicted?”
The debate over whether Rosenstein should recuse himself has long hung over the Russia probe, but the deputy attorney general said he has consulted with appropriate officials and that his position did not present a conflict.
The president last week retweeted a photoshopped image showing several Trump opponents in jail, including Rosenstein, suggesting they should be locked up for treason.
The president also took aim at top Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman, calling him a “horrible and vicious” prosecutor who “wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies.”
“Quien se mete con México, se mete con Venezuela” dice Maduro a Trump
El presidente Nicolás Maduro pronunció duras críticas hacia el mandatario estadounidense Donald Trump, por sus políticas dirigidas hacia los mexicanos, sobre todo respecto a materia de inmigración.
“América Latina y el Caribe deben alzar su voz por los migrantes mexicanos que acaban de ser amenazados por una expresión de Donald Trump, desde Venezuela levantamos nuestra voz, yo como presidente de Venezuela, de la Venezuela de Bolívar y de Chávez, levanta su voz en defensa del pueblo de México ofendido por este magnate, por este pelucón, es un verdadero pelucón Donald Trump”, dijo Maduro en conferencia de prensa.
“Que indignación, quién se mete con México se mete con Venezuela, quien se mete con los mexicanos se mete con los venezolanos, repudio total a las declaraciones de Donald Trump, bandido, ladrón, cómo te vas a meter con nuestros hermanos de México, que bastante perseguidos y explotados son por ustedes” dijo Maduro en una entrevista televisada la semana pasada y difundida por Youtube.
Cabello ordena no hablar mal de Chávez
Diosdado Cabello, primer vicepresidente del Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) lanzó este miércoles una campaña titulada “Aquí no se habla mal de Chávez”, con la que invitó a todos los seguidores del oficialismo a colgar en sus casas, oficinas o vehículos un cartel que aclare que no se hablará mal del fallecido presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez.
El dirigente chavista lanzó la iniciativa en su programa Con el mazo dando, que se emite todos los miércoles por el canal estatal Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
De manera casi inmediata, en Mérida, las instituciones públicas cumplieron la orden y -desde las instalaciones del Sistema Teleférico de Mérida (STM) “Mukumbarí”- pintaron un mural en letras negras donde se lee “En MUKUMBARI no se habla mal de CHÁVEZ”, así como un cartel en letras rojas pegado en las taquillas donde se lee: “En el TELEFERICO NO se habla MAL de CHÁVEZ”.
De esta forma hacen caso expreso a la orden de Cabello, la cual indica que quien se suba al atractivo turístico, no puede hablar mal del fallecido presidente, o al menos advierte a las personas que se suben a él a que no lo hagan.
#AquiNoSeHablaMalDeChavez, El Pueblo Chavista sale en defensa de nuestro Comandante, que se sienta en todos los rincones de la Patria!!!
Nuevos billetes en Venezuela entran en circulación este lunes, anunció Maduro
Nicolás Maduro, el presidente venezolano informó que a partir de hoy entran en circulación los nuevos billetes de 5.000 y 10.000 bolívares. Durante el programaLos Domingos Con Maduro, el presidente indicó que junto al billete de 5.000 y 10.000 bolívares también se comenzarán a incorporar progresivamente las monedas de 10 y 50 y 100 bolívares.
Según anunció en ese momento el Banco Central de Venezuela, “la ampliación del cono monetario hará más eficiente el sistema de pagos, facilitará las transacciones comerciales y minimizará los costos de producción, reposición y traslado de especies monetarias, lo que se traducirá en beneficios para la banca, el comercio y la población en general”.
Asimismo en su Twitter, el BCV indicó que los billetes de Bs. 2.000, 5.000, 10.000 y 20.000 cuentan con el elemento de seguridad “tinta ópticamente variable”.
Detienen en Venezuela a uno de los fugitivos más buscados de España
La Policía Nacional detuvo en Venezuela a uno de los fugitivos más buscados de España, Rafael Rubén Núñez Cencerrado, un empresario valenciano que lideraba una de las bandas de narcotraficantes más importantes de España, informó el medio ABC.
Según han informado a Efe fuentes policiales, su arresto se produjo en la tarde del jueves pasado en las proximidades de Valencia, la capital del estado venezolano de Carabobo.
Núñez Cencerrado, natural de Sagunto, fue arrestado en septiembre de 2011 como cabecilla de una banda de narcotraficantes por hechos que se remontaban a 2008.
Venezuela quedó fuera del top 13 del concurso Miss Universo
La representante de Venezuela, Mariam Habach, no figuró en la lista de semifinalistas a pesar de haber ganado las bandas de Mejor Cuerpo, Piel y Miss Elegancia en las preliminares en la ciudad de Manila, Filipinas.
Esta eliminación provocó la indignación de los venezolanos quienes expresaron -a través de las redes sociales- su desacuerdo con la decisión del jurado de Miss Universo.
Cabe resaltar que Venezuela no quedaba afuera de esta instancia, desde la edición Miss Universo 2010.
The Los Angeles Police Department posted a video on Facebook Tuesday showing a man punching two women and knocking them to the ground before fleeing the scene.
The incident took place Saturday at a hot dog stand in the city, the LAPD said. By Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than 80,000 times.
The suspect, identified as Arka Sangbarani Oroojian, turned himself in Tuesday night, LAPD said Wednesday. He was booked for assault with a deadly weapon and his bail was set at $90,000.
After the incident, one witness told CBS Los Angeles the women started the fight. “There are two sides to every story and those women started it,” said the witness, identified only as Stewart.
Stewart said the altercation started when the man got into a dispute with vendors about the price of a hot dog. He told KTLA the two women got involved, calling the man derogatory names and telling him to leave the vendors alone.
“They started punching on him first and once they punched on him first and jumped on his back, then he defended himself by counter-punching these women so the video only caught the second glimpse of the story,” Stewart said.
The father of one of the women said they were standing up for a street vendor that the man was hassling just before the fight began, KTLA reported.
The video shows witnesses watching the two women get punched. No one appeared to go after the man when he ran away.
Stewart said the lack of intervention was because “guys don’t want to get into it, fighting this guy and get charges pressed on them.”
Los Juegos Panamericanos se disputaron desde este fin de semana en la ciudad canadiense de Toronto y los más de 150 deportistas nacionales dejan todo en cada una de las pruebas para buscar la posibilidad de pelear por una medalla. Algunas disciplinas, como nado sincronizado, empezaron el jueves, pero el sábado y domingo se llevaron a cabo otras pruebas con buenos resultados.
Nuestro abanderado, Diego Elías, estuvo en buena forma en su encuentro de squash ante el chileno Jaime Pinto y clasificó a los cuartos de final del torneo. Por su parte, en tenis, Bianca Botto derrotó por 3 sets a 0 a la ecuatoriana Charlotte Roemer y clasificó a la siguiente etapa donde enfrentará a la estadounidense Lauren Davis.
La dupla de bádminton formada por Mario Cuba y Martín del Valle se llevaron la victoria, tras imponerse a la pareja conformada por los brasileños De Oliveira y Tjong. En el mismo deporte y modalidad, pero en damas las peruanas Macías y Nishimura ganaron a sus rivales de Jamaica, al igual que la formada por Zomoza-Winder, quienes se impusieron 2 a 0 a la dupla cubana.
Resultados hasta el momento:
08:00 hrs. Bádminton Dobles Femenino – Ronda de 16
Vela J-24 Abierto Masculino – Jorge Castro, Luis Olcese, Joel Raffo, Christian Sas Baumann.
11:30 hrs. Bádminton Individual femenino Ronda de 16
Luz María Zornoza 1-2 Haramara Gaitán (México).
12:35 hrs. Carrera 2 (retrasado)
Vela Laser Radial Femenino – Paloma Schmidt
Vela Laser Estándar Masculino – Stefano Peschiera
Vela Windsurf RSX Femenino – María Belén Bazo
Vela Sunfish Masculino – Jean Paul de Trazegnies
Vela J-24 Abierto Masculino – Jorge Castro, Luis Olcese, Joel Raffo, Christian Sas Baumann.
12:45 hrs. Squash Individual Masculino – Cuartos de Final Partido 16
Diego Elías 3-0 Christopher Gordon (Estados Unidos)
El peruano venció al estadounidense y es semifinalista del torneo. Esta noche, a las 8.45 p.m., luchará por llegar a la final de la competencia.
13:15 hrs. Bádminton Individual masculino – Ronda de 16
Mario Cuba 0-2 Andrew D’ Souza (Canadá)
14:05 hrs.(Carrera 3) Vela Windsurf Femenino
María Belén Bazo
14:25 hrs. Bádminton Individual femenino Ronda de 16
Daniela Macías 2-0 Alejandra Paiz Quan (Guatemala)
14:30 hrs. Judo
Jesús Gavidia vs. Carlos Tondique (Cuba)
El cubano venció al peruano.
Para esta tarde se espera el debut de la selección Sub-22, que dirige Víctor ‘Chino’ Rivera. La figura más destacada del cuadro nacional es Víctor Cedrón, quien con su experiencia en Alianza Lima y César Vallejo busca sumar de a tres con el cuadro nacional.
Resto de la jornada:
15:30 hrs. Levantamiento de Pesas – Hombres 69 kg Grupo A
Junior Lahuanampa y Óscar Terrones. Estos son los resultados de los peruanos.
15:35 hrs. Bádminton Dobles Mixtos Ronda de 16
Cuba-Winder vs. Reid-Williams (Jamaica). Peruanos ganaron a los centroamericanos.
Image caption
Los sospechosos compartieron un video de ellos tatuando la frase “soy un ladrón y perdedor” en la frente del muchacho.
La agresión ha generado conmoción en Brasil.
Dos hombres que tatuaron la frase “soy un ladrón y un perdedor” en la frente de un adolescente fueron arrestados el sábado en el sureste de Brasil acusados de tortura, según la policía de la ciudad de Sao Bernardo do Campo, en el estado de Sao Paulo.
Los sospechosos dijeron que el joven de 17 años había intentado robar una bicicleta, hecho que este niega. Su familia dice que tiene problemas de salud mental y que consume drogas.
La policía identificó a los hombres después de que el viernes, estos compartieran en internet un video en el que aparecen haciendo el tatuaje.
Según el diario brasileño Folha de Sao Paulo, se trata de Maycon Wesley Carvalho, de 27 años, y de Ronildo Moreira de Araújo, de 29.
Los sospechosos confesaron haber escrito el mensaje como un “castigo”.
El colectivo Afroguerrilha creó una campaña en internet para ayudar al adolescente a recaudar fondos para eliminar el tatuaje.
La policía aún no ha confirmado que el intento de robo realmente ocurriera.
“Va a doler”
Derechos de autor de la imagen EPA
Image caption
La policía identificó a los hombres después de que el viernes, estos compartieran en internet un video en el que aparecen haciendo el tatuaje. (Foto de archivo).
La víctima dijo que se había apoyado sobre la bicicleta por estar “muy borracho”, pero que no estaba tratando de robarla, según el Folha de Sao Paulo.
Los dos hombres atraparon al joven, según su testimonio, le ataron las manos y los pies, y le dijeron que lo tatuarían.
“Les pedí que hicieran el tatuaje en mi brazo, pero dijeron que lo harían en mi frente y comenzaron a reír”, contó. “Les rogué que me rompieran los brazos y las piernas“.
En el video, el menor, que parecía asustado, está sentado en una silla pero no atado, mientras un hombre con una máquina de tatuar lo sostiene por el pelo.
El hombre que está filmando se ríe y dice “va a doler”.
Los sospechosos también le cortaron el cabello al adolescente, después de que tratara de ocultar el tatuaje.
Los familiares del muchacho dijeron que este había desaparecido el 31 de mayo, pero lo reconocieron después de ver el video, y se reunieron el domingo con él.
La campaña en internet para ayudarlo ha recaudado más de 19.000 reales (US$5.800).
This story was a collaboration between The New York Times and The El Paso Times.
CLINT, Tex. — Since the Border Patrol opened its station in Clint, Tex., in 2013, it was a fixture in this West Texas farm town. Separated from the surrounding cotton fields and cattle pastures by a razor-wire fence, the station stood on the town’s main road, near a feed store, the Good News Apostolic Church and La Indita Tortillería. Most people around Clint had little idea of what went on inside. Agents came and went in pickup trucks; buses pulled into the gates with the occasional load of children apprehended at the border, four miles south.
But inside the secretive site that is now on the front lines of the southwest border crisis, the men and women who work there were grappling with the stuff of nightmares.
Outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chickenpox were spreading among the hundreds of children who were being held in cramped cells, agents said. The stench of the children’s dirty clothing was so strong it spread to the agents’ own clothing — people in town would scrunch their noses when they left work. The children cried constantly. One girl seemed likely enough to try to kill herself that the agents made her sleep on a cot in front of them, so they could watch her as they were processing new arrivals.
A Migrant Jail
This story was a collaboration between The New York Times and The El Paso Times.
“It gets to a point where you start to become a robot,” said a veteran Border Patrol agent who has worked at the Clint station since it was built. He described following orders to take beds away from children to make more space in holding cells, part of a daily routine that he said had become “heartbreaking.”
The little-known Border Patrol facility at Clint has suddenly become the public face of the chaos on America’s southern border, after immigration lawyers began reporting on the children they saw — some of them as young as 5 months old — and the filthy, overcrowded conditions in which they were being held.
Overview
The main processing
center held children
in cinder-block cells.
N
A loading area
was converted to
house older
children in
bunk beds.
Texas
Clint
Portable toilets
and showers
sat in an
adjacent yard.
Border Patrol Station
Clint, Texas
Tents housed
detainees when the
influx was at its peak.
Chain-link fencing
inside a warehouse
separated children
and adults by gender.
N
Border Patrol Station
Clint, Texas
Texas
Clint
Children were
housed in cells
in the main
processing
centerand in
a converted
loading area.
Fencing
inside a
warehouse
separated
detainees
by gender.
Border Patrol Station
Clint, Texas
N
TexAS
Clint
Fencing
inside a
warehouse
separated
detainees
by gender.
Children were
housed in cells
in the main
processing
centerand in
a converted
loading area.
N
The main processing
center held children
in cinder-block cells.
Texas
Clint
A loading area was
converted to house older
children in bunk beds.
Portable toilets and
showers sat in an
adjacent yard.
Border Patrol Station
Clint, Texas
Tents housed
detainees when the
influx was at its peak.
Chain-link fencing inside a
warehouseseparated children
and adults by gender.
By The New York Times | Aerial image by Mario Tama/Getty Images
Border Patrol leaders, including Aaron Hull, the outspoken chief patrol agent of the agency’s El Paso Sector, have disputed descriptions of degrading conditions inside Clint and other migrant detention sites around El Paso, claiming that their facilities were rigorously and humanely managed even after a spate of deaths of migrant children in federal custody.
But a review of the operations of the Clint station, near El Paso’s eastern edge, shows that the agency’s leadership knew for months that some children had no beds to sleep on, no way to clean themselves and sometimes went hungry. Its own agents had raised the alarm, and found themselves having to accommodate even more new arrivals.
The accounts of what happened at Clint and at nearby border facilities are based on dozens of interviews by The New York Times and The El Paso Times of current and former Border Patrol agents and supervisors; lawyers, lawmakers and aides who visited the facility; and an immigrant father whose children were held there. The review also included sworn statements from those who spent time at El Paso border facilities, inspection reports and accounts from neighbors in Clint.
The conditions at Clint represent a conundrum not just for local officials, but for Congress, where lawmakers spent weeks battling over the terms of a $4.6 billion humanitarian aid package for facilities at the border. The lack of federal investment, some argue, is why the sites have been so strained. But the reports of squalor prompted several Democratic lawmakers to vote against the final bill, which did not have oversight and enforcement provisions.
By all accounts, the Border Patrol’s attempt to continue making room for new children at Clint even as it was unable to find space to send them to better-equipped facilities was a source of concern for many people who worked there.
“I can’t tell you the number of times I would talk to agents and they would get teary-eyed,” said one agent, a veteran of 13 years with Border Patrol who worked at Clint.
Mary E. González, a Democratic state lawmaker who toured the Clint station last week, said that Border Patrol agents told her they had repeatedly warned their superiors about the overcrowded facility, but that federal officials had taken no action.
“They said, ‘We were ringing the alarms, we were ringing the alarms, and nobody was listening to us’ — agents told me that,” Ms. González said. “I genuinely believe that the higher-ups made the Clint situation happen.”
A Forward Operating Base
Architects designed the Clint station as a type of forward base — replete with fueling stations, garages for all-terrain vehicles and horse stables — from which agents could go on forays along the border.
The station was never intended to hold more than about a hundred adult men, and it was designed with the idea that migrants would be detained for only a few hours of processing before being transferred to other locations.
Officials have allowed reporters and members of Congress on controlled tours of Clint, but prohibited them from bringing phones or cameras inside, and from entering certain areas. But through interviews with dozens of people with knowledge of the station — including lawyers, former detainees and staff members — The Times was able to model the main areas where children were held: the station’s central processing area, with its cinder-block cells; a converted loading area and yard; and a warehouse on the property.
Processing Center
Processing Center
Children and toddlers were held for days in cinder-block cells with a single toilet. Beds were removed to make space, so they slept on the floor. Many fell ill.
At one point, this cell held 46 children, more than double its capacity.
10 feet
Exit to loading area
Interview room
Nurses’ station
Command center
Processing CENTER
Sick children were quarantined and sometimes held in this padded cell with no toilet.
Clint border
patrol station
Processing Center
Children and toddlers were held for days in cinder-block cells. Beds were removed to make space, so they slept on the floor. Many fell ill.
At one point, this cell held 46 children, more than double its capacity.
Exit to loading area
Interview room
Nurses’ station
Command center
10 feet
Sick children were quarantined and sometimes held in this padded cell with no toilet.
Processing Center
Children and toddlers were held for days in cinder-block cells. Beds were removed to make space, so they slept on the floor. Many fell ill.
At one point, this cell held 46 children, more than double its capacity.
Exit to loading area
Command center
10 feet
Sick children were quarantined and sometimes held in this padded cell with no toilet.
Parts of the site resemble what might be seen at many government buildings. Photographs in the hallway celebrate the work of the Border Patrol, showing agents on horseback and in all-terrain vehicles. A conference room features high-backed chairs upholstered with faux leather.
But the sense of normalcy fades away the deeper one goes into the station. A detachment of Coast Guard personnel, sent to assist overworked agents, stock an ad hoc pantry with items like oatmeal and instant noodles. Monitors in blue shirts roam the station, hired through an outside contractor to supervise the detained children.
Beyond the pantry, a door leads to the site’s processing center, equipped with about 10 cells. One day this month, about 20 girls were crowded into one cell, so packed that some were sprawled on the floor. Toddlers could be seen in some cells, cared for by older children.
One of the cells functioned as a quarantine unit or “flu cell” for children with contagious diseases; employees have at times worn medical masks and gloves to protect themselves.
A part of the processing area was set aside for detained children to make phone calls to family members. Many broke into tears upon hearing the voices of loved ones, episodes so common that some agents merely shrugged in response.
Loading Area and Yard
LOADING AREA
And Yard
Loading Area and Yard
Older children slept in a converted loading area, with access to a fenced yard and a single basketball hoop for recreation.
Storage for food and toiletries.
Fan
Clint border
patrol station
Loading area
Three-bed bunk beds lined one wall.
Trailer with showers
Basketball hoop
Yard
Sleeping mats
Portable toilets
10 feet
Loading Area and Yard
Older children slept in a converted loading area, with access to a fenced yard and a single basketball hoop for recreation.
Storage for food and toiletries.
Fan
Loading area
Trailer with showers
Basketball hoop
Three-bed bunk beds lined one wall.
Yard
Sleeping mats
10 feet
Portable toilets
Loading Area and Yard
Older children slept in a converted loading area, with access to a fenced yard and a single basketball hoop for recreation.
Three-bed bunk beds lined one wall.
Storage for food and toiletries.
Fan
Trailer with showers
Sleeping mats
10 feet
Portable toilets
Basketball hoop
Clint is known for holding what agents call U.A.C.s, or unaccompanied alien children — children who cross the border alone or with relatives who are not their parents.
Three agents who work at Clint said they had seen unaccompanied children as young as 3 enter the facility, and lawyers who recently inspected the site as part of a lawsuit on migrant children’s rights said they saw children as young as 5 months old. An agent who has worked for Border Patrol for 13 years — and who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the situation — confirmed reports by immigration lawyers that agents have asked migrants who are teenagers to help care for the younger children.
“We have nine agents processing, two agents in charge of U.A.C. care and we have little ones that need their diapers changed, and we can’t do that,” the agent said. “We can’t carry them or change diapers. We do ask the older juveniles, the 16-year-olds or 17-year-olds, to help us out with that.”
Warehouse
Trailer with showers
Warehouse
A tin-roof building that is used to store patrol vehicles was converted to hold families. As many as 200 people slept on cots and on the floor when bunks were full.
A tarp shaded part of the yard.
10 feet
Officers’ table
A.C. unit
Portable toilets
Clint border
patrol station
Chain-link fencing inside separated children and adults by gender.
Fan
WarehousE
Warehouse
A tin-roof building that is used to store patrol vehicles was converted to hold families. As many as 200 people slept on cots and on the floor when bunks were full.
Trailer with showers
10 feet
Officers’ table
A.C. unit
Portable toilets
A tarp shaded part of the yard.
Chain-link fencing inside separated children and adults by gender.
Fan
Warehouse
A tin-roof building that is used to store patrol vehicles was converted to hold families. As many as 200 people slept on cots and on the floor when bunks were full.
Trailer with showers
10 feet
Officers’ table
A.C. unit
Portable toilets
A tarp shaded part of the yard.
Chain-link fencing inside separated children and adults by gender.
Fan
As immigration flows change, the scene inside Clint has shifted as well. The number of children in the site is thought to have peaked at more than 700 around April and May, and stood at nearly 250 two weeks ago. In an attempt to relieve overcrowding, agents took all the children out of Clint but then moved more than 100 back into the station just days later.
Unaccompanied boys are kept in a converted loading area that holds about 50 people. Until a few weeks ago, older boys were kept in a tent encampment outside.
Families, including adult parents, were also sent to Clint earlier this year, and Representative Will Hurd, a Republican whose Texas district includes Clint, said that 11 adult males “apprehended that morning” were also being held at the site when he visited on June 29.
Before the influx of migrants began to wane in recent weeks, the agents said they had kept the families in a warehouse normally used to house A.T.V.s. It was converted into two holding areas initially intended to house 50 people each.
A Chief Agent Under Fire
At least two Border Patrol agents at Clint said they had expressed concern about the conditions in the station to their superiors months ago. Even before that, senior Homeland Security officials in Washington had significant concerns about the El Paso Sector’s brash chief patrol agent and his oversight of the facility over the past year, when tighter security along other sections of the border prompted a steep rise in migrant crossings along the section that runs from New Mexico through West Texas.
The situation became so severe that in January, officials at Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees the Border Patrol, took the unusual move of ordering the sector chief, Mr. Hull, to come to headquarters in Washington for a face-to-face meeting. The officials were concerned that Mr. Hull, an agency veteran who speaks with a pronounced Texas twang, had moved too slowly to put safety measures in place after the deaths of migrant children, according to a Homeland Security official. After the meeting, Mr. Hull moved forward with the new procedures.
But tension has persisted between Mr. Hull and officials in Washington, particularly in recent months, as the number of migrants continued to increase at his facilities. The officials believe that Mr. Hull and Matthew Harris, the chief of the Clint station, have been slow to follow directives and communicate developments at the facilities in their sector, according to two Homeland Security officials.
Mr. Hull is seen as a hard-liner on immigration issues. He has often been heard saying that migrants exaggerate the problems they face in their home countries.
Officials at the border agency declined multiple interview requests.
Last month, the acting head of C.B.P., John Sanders, ordered an internal investigation into the Clint facility. The investigation — which is being conducted by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the department’s inspector general — has examined allegations of misconduct.
As part of the review, investigators have conducted interviews and watched hours of video footage to see how agents treated detainees. So far, investigators have found little evidence to substantiate allegations of misconduct. But they have found that the facility is several times over capacity and has horrendous conditions.
The uproar over the site is drawing scrutiny on Border Patrol facilities that are some of the least-regulated migrant detention centers in the United States.
That is in part because they are intended in most cases to hold migrants for no more than 72 hours, before they are turned over to better-equipped facilities operated by other government agencies with stricter regulations on, say, the number of toilets and showers required. But the 72-hour limit has been frequently breached during the current migrant surge; some children have been housed at Clint for weeks on end.
Lawyers who visited the Clint station described children in filthy clothes, often lacking diapers and with no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap, prompting people around the country to donate supplies that the Border Patrol turned away.
But Mr. Hull painted a far different picture of his need for supplies in April, when the numbers of children held in Clint were soaring. Mr. Hull told commissioners in Doña Ana County in Las Cruces, N.M., in April that his stations had more than enough supplies.
“Twenty years ago, we were lucky if we had juice and crackers for those in custody,” Mr. Hull said, as quoted in The Las Cruces Sun-News. “Now, our stations are looking more like Walmarts — with diapers and baby formula and all kinds of things, like food and snacks, that we aren’t resourced or staffed for and don’t have the space to hold.”
An Inspector Arrives
One day in April, a man from Washington arrived unannounced around midday at the Clint station. He introduced himself as Henry Moak, and told the agents inside that he was there to inspect the site in his role as Customs and Border Protection’s chief accountability officer.
The Clint station was far over capacity on the day of Mr. Moak’s visit, bulging with 291 children. Mr. Moak found evidence of a lice infestation; children also told him about going hungry and being forced to sleep on the floors.
One girl, a 14-year-old from El Salvador, had been in custody for 14 days in Clint, including a nine-day stretch in a nearby hospital during which Border Patrol agents accompanied her and kept her under surveillance. Mr. Moak did not specify in his report why the girl had been rushed to the hospital. When the girl returned to Clint, another child had taken her bed so she had to sleep on the floor.
Two sisters from Honduras, one 11 and the other 7, told Mr. Moak that they had to sleep on benches in the facility’s hold room, getting their own cot only when other children were transferred out. “The sisters told me they had not showered or brushed their teeth since arriving at Clint station,” Mr. Moak said in his report. Showers had been offered twice during the girls’ time in custody, but the girls were asleep each time, his review showed.
Mr. Moak in the end stated that Clint was in compliance with standards.
One of a team of lawyers who inspected the station in June, Warren Binford, director of the clinical law program at Willamette University in Oregon, said that in all her years of visiting detention and shelter facilities, she had never encountered conditions so bad — 351 children crammed into what she described as a prisonlike environment.
She looked at the roster, and was shocked to see more than 100 very young children listed. “My God, these are babies, I realized. They are keeping babies here,” she recalled.
One teenage mother from El Salvador said Border Patrol agents at the border had taken her medicine for her infant son, who had a fever.
“Did they throw away anything else?” Ms. Binford said she had asked her.
“Everything,” she replied. “They threw away my baby’s diapers, formula, bottle, baby food and clothes. They threw away everything.”
Once at Clint, she told Ms. Binford, the baby’s fever came back and she begged the agents for more medicine. “Who told you to come to America with your baby, anyway?” one of the agents told her, according to the young woman’s account to Ms. Binford.
Border Patrol agents have said they have adequate supplies at Clint for most of the migrants’ needs. The facility lacks a kitchen, they said, so the ramen, granola bars, instant oatmeal and burritos that serve as most of the sustenance for migrants has been the best they could do.
Children sometimes could be seen crying, said one Border Patrol agent, who has worked for seven years at the Clint facility, but it most often seemed to be because they missed their parents. “It’s never because they’re mistreated; it’s because they’re homesick,” she said.
A Father Finds His Sons
Not long after Mr. Moak signed off on the conditions inside Clint, a man named Ruben was desperately trying to find his sons, 11-year-old twins who both have epilepsy.
The boys had crossed the border together in early June with their adult sister. They were hoping to reunite with their parents who had come to the United States earlier from El Salvador in order to earn enough money to pay for the boys’ epilepsy medications. They require daily injections and a strict regimen of care to prevent the seizures they began having at age 5.
But the twins were separated at the border from their sister and sent to Clint.
The first time they spoke to Ruben on the phone, the two boys sobbed intensely and asked when they would be able to see their parents again.
“We don’t want to be here,” they told him.
Ruben asked that his last name and the names of his sons be withheld for fear of retaliation by the American government.
Only later did Ruben learn that the boys had been given at least some of their epilepsy medication, and neither one had had a seizure. But one boy reported breaking out in a skin rash, his face and arms turning red and flaky. Both had come down with fevers and said they had been sent temporarily to the “flu cell.”
“There is no one to take care of you there,” one told his father.
It took 13 days after the boys were detained to speak to their father over the phone. A lawyer who had entered the facility, Clara Long of Human Rights Watch, met the boys, tracked down their parents, and helped them make a call. The boys were stoic and quiet, she said, and shook her hand as if “trying to act like little adults” — until they spoke to their father. Then, they could answer only with one- or two-word answers, Ms. Long said, and were wiping tears from their faces.
Much of the overcrowding appears to have been relieved at Clint, and overall arrivals at the border are slowing, as new policies make migrants, mainly from Central America, return to Mexico after they request asylum, as the summer heat deters travelers and as Mexico’s crackdown on its southern border prevents many from entering.
A Border Patrol agent who has long worked in the El Paso area said agents had tried to make things as easy as possible for the children; some bought toys and sports equipment on their own to bring in. “Agents play board games and sports with them,” he said.
But the Border Patrol long “took great pride” in quickly processing migrant families, and making sure children did not remain in their rudimentary stations for longer than 72 hours, the agent said. Clint, he said, “is not a place for kids.”
In the surrounding town, many residents were puzzled and sad at the news of what was happening to children in the station on Alameda Avenue.
“I don’t know what the hell happened, but they’ve diverted from their original mission,” said Julián Molinar, 66, a retired postal deliveryman who lives in a house facing the station. He served in the Army in Europe as the Berlin Wall came down, he said, and was dismayed that there was now talk of building a border wall near his home. As for the Clint facility, he said, “children should not be held here.”
Dora H. Aguirre, Clint’s mayor, expressed sympathy for the agents, who are part of the community in Clint and neighboring El Paso. “They’re just trying to do their job as a federal agency,” she said. “They are trying to do the best they can.”
DOVER, Del. — Former vice president Joe Biden is expected to announce soon whether he will seek the White House in 2020. On Saturday night, he seemed — for a moment — to get ahead of himself.
“I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the United . . . anybody who would run,” Biden told Delaware Democrats at their party fundraising dinner.
The crowd at a ballroom at the Dover Downs casino complex began to cheer, as Biden laughed and crossed himself.
Biden, 76, has repeatedly pushed back possible announcement dates for what would be his third run for the presidency. He has tapped staffers who would be expected to lead a national campaign, leaving many of his political allies convinced he’ll run. But he has yet to make those plans official.
Saturday night’s state Democratic gala, which also celebrated a top-to-bottom Democratic sweep in the state’s midterm elections, repeatedly turned to Biden’s own plans.
Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) referred to him as “President Biden.” Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) told the crowd that he was “praying” for a president who “unites us and heals us,” referring to Biden. Sonia Schorr Sloan, an activist accepting an award at the dinner, said she had told Biden that she had “one campaign left” in her.
The most significant hopes and gains unlocked by the Berlin Wall’s fall, which was 30 years ago Saturday, are all at risk.
They included a historic expansion of democracies and open markets, a wave of globalization that created the greatest prosperity and largest global middle class the world has ever seen, and the enlargement the European Union, to 28 from 12 members, and NATO, to 29 from 16 – deepening ties among the world’s leading democracies.
That all brought with it the hope of what then-President George H.W. Bush called in 1989 “A Europe Whole and Free,” in which Russia could find its proper and peaceful place. Bush went even further in September 1990, after the UN Security Council had blessed the U.S.-led coalition’s war to free Kuwait from Iraqi invasion, envisioning a New World Order, “an era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony.”
The idea had been hatched a month earlier by President Bush and General Brent Scowcroft, his national security adviser, while fishing near the president’s vacation home at Kennebunkport, Maine. They came home with three bluefish and an audacious vision that the Cold War’s end and the Persian Gulf Crisis presented a unique chance to build a global system against aggression “out of the collapse of the US-Soviet antagonisms,” in the words of General Scowcroft.
Reflecting on those heady days, Scowcroft recently told me that he felt everything he had worked for in his life was now at risk. If U.S. and European leaders don’t recover the common purpose they shared at that time – and there is yet little sign they will – this weekend’s Berlin Wall anniversary is more a moment for concern than celebration.
“Look at what is happening in the world,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a freshly published interview in the Economist. “Things that were unthinkable five years ago. To be wearing ourselves out over Brexit, to have Europe finding it so difficult to move forward, to have an American ally turning its back on us so quickly on strategic issues; nobody would have believed this possible.”
This weekend’s 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall provides a good moment to reflect on four reasons that event – one of freedom’s greatest historic triumphs – has failed to deliver on its full potential. Understanding that, might unlock a better path forward.
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