World
The unexpected announcement of a prime minister divides Haiti's newly created transitional council
A surprise announcement that revealed Haiti’s new prime minister is threatening to fracture a recently installed transitional council tasked with choosing new leaders for the gang-riddled Caribbean country.
Four of seven council members with voting powers said Tuesday that they had chosen Fritz Bélizaire as prime minister, taking many Haitians aback with their declaration and unexpected political alliance.
HAITI COUNCIL APPOINTS NEW PRIME MINISTER AS COUNTRY CONTINUES TO FACE DEADLY GANG VIOLENCE
The council members who oppose Bélizaire, who served as Haiti’s sports minister during the second presidency of René Préval from 2006 to 2011, are now weighing options including fighting the decision or resigning from the council.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation who did not want to be identified because negotiations are ongoing said the council’s political accord had been violated by the unexpected move and that some council members are considering other choices as potential prime minister.
Edgard Leblanc Fils, left, and Smith Augustin prepare to pose for a group photo with the transitional council after it named Fils as its president in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, April 30, 2024. The transitional council will act as the country’s presidency until it can arrange presidential elections sometime before it disbands, which must be by February 2026. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
The council on Tuesday was scheduled to hold an election and choose its president. But two hours and a profuse apology later, one council member said that not only a council president had been chosen, but a prime minister as well. Murmurs rippled through the room.
The Montana Accord, a civil society group represented by a council member with voting powers, denounced in a statement late Tuesday what it called a “complot” hatched by four council members against the Haitian people “in the middle of the night.”
“The political and economic mafia forces have decided to take control of the presidential council and the government so that they can continue to control the state,” the Montana Accord said.
Haitian politics have long been characterized by secretive dealings, but many worry the country cannot afford further political instability as gangs lay siege to the capital of Port-au-Prince and beyond.
“People change parties (like) they’re changing their shirts,” said François Pierre-Louis, a professor of political science at Queens College in New York and former Haitian politician.
He spoke during an online webinar on Tuesday evening.
Like others, he said he believed that Jean-Charles Moïse, a powerful politician who was a former senator and presidential candidate, was behind Bélizaire’s nomination.
“Interestingly, Moïse, of all the politicians there, is the one calling the shots,” Pierre-Louis said.
Moïse, however, does not sit on the council. His party, Pitit Desalin, is represented by Emmanuel Vertilaire, who is among the four council members who support Bélizaire.
The others are Louis Gérald Gilles, Smith Augustin and Edgard Leblanc Fils, the council’s new president.
They could not be immediately reached for comment.
A document shared with The Associated Press and signed by the four council members who chose the new prime minister state they have agreed to make decisions by consensus. The document is titled, “Constitution of an Indissoluble Majority Bloc within the Presidential Council.”
The move prompted the Fanmi Lavalas party to issue a statement Wednesday calling it a “masquerade” and “conspiracy” to guarantee that PHTK “thugs and their allies retain power…and continue the tradition of corruption.”
“The Lavalas Family strongly rejects the betrayal scandal that occurred on April 30,” the party said.
Fils represents the January 30 political group, which is made up of parties including PHTK, whose members include former President Michel Martelly and slain President Jovenel Moïse. Meanwhile, Augustin represents the EDE/RED political party, founded by former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, and Gilles represents the Dec. 21 agreement, which is associated with former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who recently resigned.
Henry was on an official visit to Kenya to push for the U.N.-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country when gangs in Haiti launched coordinated attacks starting Feb. 29.
They have burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that remains closed since early March and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates. The violence continues unabated in certain part of Port-au-Prince, including the area around the National Palace.
Haitians are demanding that security be a top priority for the council, which is tasked with selecting a new prime minister and Cabinet, as well as prepare for eventual general elections.
But some Haitians are wary of the council and the decisions it’s taking.
Jean Selcé, a 57-year-old electrician, noted that most of the council members are longtime politicians: “Their past is not really positive.”
“I hope their mentality can change, but I don’t believe it will,” he said. “They don’t really love the country. Who’s dying right now? It’s Haitians like me.”
Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, noted that some of the parties represented on the council are responsible for the current chaos in Haiti.
“It’s a contradiction,” he said. “Every time we seem to be in a crisis, we reappoint the same people and hope that they change their ways, but they do not.”
Raising the same criticism is Michael Deibert, author of “Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti,” and “Haiti Will Not Perish: A Recent History.”
He noted in a recent essay that the council is “dominated by the same political currents who have spent the last 25 years driving Haiti over a cliff, taking advantage of impoverished young men in the slums to be used as political bludgeons before – bloated on the proceeds from kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises – these groups outgrew the necessity of their patrons.”
More than 2,500 people have been killed or injured across Haiti from January to March, according to the U.N.
In addition, more than 90,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince in just one month given the relentless gang violence.
World
Deadly shooting at historic tourist site leaves one dead, several injured as motive unclear
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A Canadian woman was shot and killed Monday, and several others were injured, before a gunman took his own life at Mexico’s popular Teotihuacan pyramids.
Mexican officials said that four people were wounded by gunfire and two others sustained injuries from falls. Among the injured were tourists from Colombia, Russia, and Canada, according to local government reports via The Associated Press.
A firearm, a bladed weapon, and live cartridges were found at the scene, Mexico’s Security Cabinet confirmed on social media.
The Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun are seen along with smaller structures lining the Avenue of the Dead in Teotihuacan, Mexico, on March 19, 2020. A gunman killed a Canadian tourist and injured several other before taking his own life at the popular site, authorities said Monday. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)
“Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones, and consular officials are in touch to provide assistance,” Canada’s foreign ministry said in a social media post.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on social media that the shooting would be thoroughly investigated and that she was in contact with the Canadian Embassy.
TOURISTS TRAPPED IN PUERTO VALLARTA RECOUNT CARTEL RETALIATION AFTER EL MENCHO KILLED
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum speaks during her morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City on Jan. 5, 2026. (Raquel Cunha/Reuters)
“What happened today in Teotihuacan deeply pains us,” she wrote. “I express my most sincere solidarity with the affected individuals and their families.”
MAJOR DRUG LORD ‘EL MENCHO’ KILLED IN MEXICAN MILITARY OPERATION WITH U.S. INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT
Sheinbaum said she has instructed the Security Cabinet to investigate the events and provide all necessary support to the victims.
People visit the Pyramid of the Sun in the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan near Mexico City, Mexico, on March 21, 2024, following the spring equinox. (Henry Romero/Reuters)
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“Personnel from the Secretariat of the Interior and the Secretariat of Culture are already heading to the site to provide assistance and accompaniment, along with local authorities,” she said. “I am closely following the situation, and we will continue to provide timely updates through the Security Cabinet.”
The pre-Hispanic city, located just outside Mexico City, was once one of the most significant cultural centers in Mesoamerica.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Canada’s foreign ministry for comment.
World
‘Predators’: Amnesty slams Netanyahu Putin, Trump, as human rights decline
London, United Kingdom – Israel, Russia and the United States are leading the destruction of global human rights, Amnesty International has said, describing the three countries’ leaders as “voracious predators” intent upon economic and political domination.
“A global environment where primitive ferocity could flourish has been long in the making,” Agnes Callamard, the head of the global rights group, wrote in an annual report on the state of the world’s human rights that was released on Tuesday.
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In 2025, “sharp U-turns were taken away from the international order that had been imagined out of the ashes of the Holocaust and the utter destruction of world wars, and constructed slowly and painfully, albeit insufficiently, over these past 80 years,” she said.
In a news conference on Monday in London, Callamard said that most governments tend to appease the “predators” rather than confront them.
“Some even thought to imitate the bullies and the looters,” she said.
Spain, however, which is an outlier in Europe for its criticism of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and US-Israeli attacks on Iran, “is standing above the double standard that is destroying the international system”, Callamard said.
She argued that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who in 2022 sent his forces into neighbouring Ukraine, have had an “absolutely dramatic” impact on the world.
Their conduct is “emboldening all of those that are tempted by similar behaviours,” said Callamard. “It is allowing for the multiplication of copycats around the world, and therefore what we are confronting now is much more aggressive and ferocious than what we had to confront three or four years ago.”
‘Authoritarian practices have intensified worldwide’
Amnesty’s review of the state of the world’s human rights makes for grim reading, documenting attacks on fundamental civil liberties in most nations.
“Authoritarian practices have intensified worldwide”, the report reads, before running through abuses alleged in countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe in 400 pages.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Russia’s “crimes against humanity” in Ukraine, and the US-Israeli war on Iran were noted as examples of conflict in which international laws have been ignored.
In a section on repression, the United Kingdom is blamed for cracking down on the Palestine solidarity movement and Palestine Action, the direct-action group that targets sites associated with the Israeli military and is currently fighting a legal battle against its UK proscription as a “terrorist” organisation.
Afghanistan’s Taliban was responsible for further gender-based discrimination in 2025, the report noted, citing measures excluding women from education and work, while Nepalese authorities were said to have failed to investigate instances of gender-based violence against Dalit women.
Amnesty’s report comes as multiple conflicts rage across the world.
The US-Israeli assault on Iran has killed more than 3,000 people, while Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed nearly 2,400. In Gaza, the confirmed number of people killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 has surpassed 72,500 as the decimated territory is continually threatened by Israeli bombardment. In Ukraine, more than 15,000 have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began more than four years ago.
Conflicts in the Middle East are a “product of the descent into lawlessness, made possible by a vision of the world in which war-making and the killings of civilians are normalised”, said Callamard.
“No effective steps have been taken against Israel for its repeated, constant violation of basic standards of humanity.”
However, there is some room for optimism, Amnesty said.
It listed moments of “resistance” such as Gen Z-led protests; the growing number of states joining South Africa’s case against Israel’s genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ); the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) crimes against humanity charges against former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte; the Council of Europe’s special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine; and the ICC’s arrest warrant against two Taliban leaders for “gender-based persecution”.
World
Patrick Muldoon, ‘Days of Our Lives’ and ‘Melrose Place’ Actor, Dies at 57
Patrick Muldoon, an actor who starred in “Days of Our Lives” and “Melrose Place,” died on Sunday, his manager confirmed to Variety. He was 57.
From 1992 to 1995, Muldoon originated the role of Austin Reed on the daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” He returned to the soap to reprise the role from 2011 to 2012.
He also had a recurring role as Jeffrey Hunter in the teen television series “Saved by the Bell” in 1991. Muldoon also starred on the primetime soap opera “Melrose Place” from 1995 to 1996, playing the villain Richard Hart.
In 1997, Muldoon played the role of Zander Barcalow in the film “Starship Troopers,” directed by Paul Verhoeven.
Muldoon was also an active producer, working on a slew of movies including “The Tribes of Palos Verdes,” “Arkansas,” “Marlowe,” “The Card Counter,” “The Dreadful” and “Riff Raff” through his Storyboard Productions. He was set to produce the upcoming feature “Kockroach,” starring Chris Hemsworth. Just two days ago, Muldoon posted on Instagram: “So excited to be a part of this amazing project KOCKROACH directed by Matt Ross starring Chris Hemsworth, Taron Edgerton, Zazzie Beetz and Alec Baldwin.” The production is currently filming in Australia.
His latest acting role was in “Dirty Hands,” a new crime thriller with Denise Richards and Michael Beach. The film is slated to be released later this month.
Muldoon is survived by his partner, Miriam Rothbart; parents Deanna and Patrick Muldoon, Sr.; sister and brother-in-law Shana and Ahmet Zappa, niece Halo and nephew Arrow Zappa.
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