China’s property crisis has impacted the country’s biggest banks, increasing non-performing loans.
Beijing is urging banks to boost financing for “white list” property developers to help the sector.
Despite the crisis, Chinese banks say they have sufficient buffers to manage risks.
China’s property crisis has hit the books of its biggest lenders, which are reporting an uptick in non-performing loans.
Non-performing loans at China’s big four banks — Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Agricultural Bank of China — jumped 10.4% in 2023, from 1.117 trillion Chinese yuan, about $155 billion, in 2022 to 1.23 trillion yuan.
This is according to a Nikkei analysis based on the companies’ earnings, which were released this week.
The banks were all profitable last year, but their margins are being increasingly pressured by the fallout from China’s real-estate debt crisis.
Even so, Beijing is urging banks to boost financing for property developers featured on a “white list” of companies.
China’s real-estate sector has been mired in crisis since the second half of 2021, when a liquidity crunch at Evergrande — once China’s second-largest developer — came to light.
Evergrande is now in liquidation, while other Chinese real-estate developers have run into similar issues and have begun defaulting on their bond payments, spurring fears the crisis could spill over into other sectors of the economy, and globally.
Despite the rise in bad loans, Chinese lenders said they had enough buffers to weather the storm and will control lending risks to property developers, per Nikkei.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday ordered Israel to take more steps to protect civilians in Gaza and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the coastal strip where Israeli troops are fighting against Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The court ordered Israel to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, noting there is no substitute for land crossings for supplies. The court also said Israel must “not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza.”
The United Nations high court’s Thursday order comes after a plea from South Africa for the ICJ to take further action after the court’s initial January ruling has not alleviated the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The ICJ noted in the Thursday order that the situation has worsened since January.
“The Court observes with regret that, since then, the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” it wrote in the order, “in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities to which the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been subjected.”
The state of Palestine at the U.N. said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that “Israel has to fully cooperate” with the order, noting that it was binding.
South Africa filed a case at the ICJ at the end of 2023, accusing Israel of genocide in the war against Hamas in Gaza. More than 32,000 people have died in Gaza, and the coastal strip is facing a hunger crisis.
Israel has rejected those accusations and maintains it has a right to defend itself after Hamas invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostages. Around 100 hostages are still left alive in Gaza.
The ICJ case could take years to resolve on the question of whether Israel is committing genocide, but the court decided to take preliminary action in January after a request from South Africa.
Those preliminary orders include taking measures to prevent the killing of civilians, facilitate humanitarian aid and punish those calling for genocide.
Israel submitted a report in February detailing the measures it has taken to follow those court orders.
The ICJ has also called for the release of hostages held by Hamas.
The U.N. Security Council has separately called for a cease-fire in Gaza for the rest of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which lasts for another two weeks, and for the release of hostages.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
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A video showing a photoshoot has been falsely labelled on social media as “Pallywood” — a derogatory term adopted by conspiracy theorists to accuse Palestinians of faking casualties. The footage predates the Israel-Gaza war by several years.
“More Pallywood is Full HD. Despicable scum,” reads a Facebook post from February 15, 2024, that appears to show a behind-the-scenes video of a photoshoot.
The clip — filmed in a sandy and rubbish-strewn area — shows a photographer ripping a boy’s tunic and wrapping his arm in a bandage before smearing it with fake blood. Two men wearing military fatigues can also be seen.
Screenshot of false post taken on March 27, 2024
Posts describing the footage as “Pallywood” — a derogatory label that blends “Palestine” and “Hollywood” — have popped up on social media globally, including in Israel , the Netherlands and Ukraine.
The clip is just one of numerous videos that have been shared alongside a similar misleading claim online since Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing at least 1,160 people, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
Israel’s military has waged a retaliatory offensive against Hamas that has killed over 32,400 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The term “Pallywood” often accompanies “crisis actor” conspiracy theories, which accuse civilians from both Israel and the Gaza Strip of faking injuries or deaths to demonise the other side.
But the video predates the war in Gaza.
‘Iraq photoshoot’
A keyword search of the Instagram handle “1.q3i” seen in the video in the false post found a TikTok account which posted the same video on December 15, 2022 (archived link), about a year before the Israel-Gaza war erupted in October 2023.
It shows the same boy and man setting up a shot.
The overlaid text in Arabic says “A shy kid” while the caption, also in Arabic, says “The second account of Salji the photographer”.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip in the false posts (left) and the TikTok video (right):
Screenshot comparison of the clip in the false post (left) and the original video on Tiktok (right)
The photographer did not respond to AFP’s request for comment, however, he told the Australian Associated Press that his name was Murtada Fallah and he filmed the video in 2019 during a photoshoot in Baghdad (archived link).
He also posted additional footage on TikTok (here and here) from the same shoot (archived links here and here).
AFP identified one of the soldiers’ shoulder patches with an eagle as the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) insignia, as shown on the agency’s verified account on social media platform X (archived link).
Below is a comparison between a screenshot of the video in the false posts (left) and an AFP photo of a CTS member (right), taken in the southern Iraq city of Basra with the insignia highlighted in red:
Screenshot of misrepresented footage showing Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service insignia.
Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Services (CTS) members secure the street close to the Basra International Hotel where Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi stays in Basra on September 10, 2018.
HAIDAR MOHAMMED ALIAFP
Fallah’s other shoots have shown Baghdad’s Martyr Monument and an Iraqi SWAT vehicle (archived links here and here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war, including false “crisis actor” claims here and here.
Committee proposes raising Social Security retirement age
Committee proposes raising Social Security retirement age
02:33
With Americans living longer and spending more years in retirement, the nation’s changing demographics are “putting the U.S. retirement system under immense strain,” according to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in his annual shareholder letter.
One way to fix it, he suggests, is for Americans to work longer before they head into retirement.
“No one should have to work longer than they want to. But I do think it’s a bit crazy that our anchor idea for the right retirement age — 65 years old — originates from the time of the Ottoman Empire,” Fink wrote in his 2024 letter, which largely focuses on the retirement crisis facing the U.S. and other nations as their populations age.
Fink’s suggestions about addressing the nation’s retirement crisis come amid a debate about the future of Social Security, which will face a funding shortfall in less than a decade. Some Republican lawmakers have proposed raising the retirement age for claiming Social Security benefits, arguing, like Fink, that because Americans are living longer, they should work longer, too.
How to maximize retirement savings by minimizing taxes
03:38
But that ignores the reality of aging in the workplace, with the AARP finding in a 2022 survey that the majority of workers over 50 say they face ageism at work. And because of ill health or an unexpected job loss, many older Americans stop working before they planned to. In fact, the median age of retirement in the U.S. is 62 — even lower than the “traditional” retirement age of 65.
Fink is right in saying that the retirement system isn’t working for most households, noted retirement expert and New School of Research professor Teresa Ghilarducci told CBS MoneyWatch. But his assessment that people should work longer misses the mark, she added.
“After a 40-year-old experiment of a voluntary, do-it-yourself-based pension system, half of workers have no easy way to save for retirement,” she said. “And in rich nations, why isn’t age 65 a good target for most workers to stop working for someone else?”
She added, “Working longer won’t get us out of this. Most people don’t retire when they want to, anyway.”
Vested interest?
To be sure, America’s retirement gap, or the gulf between what people need to fund their golden years versus what they’ve actually saved, isn’t new, nor is Social Security’s looming funding emergency. Yet Fink’s comments are noteworthy because of his status as the head of the world’s largest asset manager, with more than $10 trillion in assets, including many retirement accounts.
Of course, Fink has a vested interest in Americans boosting their retirement assets, given that his firm collects fees from those accounts. And in his letter, he also promotes a new target-date fund from BlackRock called LifePath Paycheck, which will roll out in April.
“He’s steering the conversation toward BlackRock — and a lot of people who talk about Social Security reform on Wall Street want to privatize it in some manner and make money,” Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, an expert on Social Security, told CBS MoneyWatch.
To be sure, Fink also praises public policy success stories for addressing retirement savings, such as Australia’s system, which began in the early 1990s and requires employers to put a portion of a worker’s income into a fund. Today, Australia has the world’s 54th largest population but the 4th largest retirement system, he noted.
“As a nation, we should do everything we can to make retirement investing more automatic for workers,” he noted.
Expert on why more Americans are withdrawing from their 401(k) retirement funds early
02:24
Can boomers fix the problem?
Fink, who was born in 1952, said that his generation has an obligation to help fix the nation’s retirement problems. The financial insecurity facing younger Americans, such as millennials and Gen Z, are creating generations of disillusioned, anxious workers, he noted.
“They believe my generation — the baby boomers — have focused on their own financial well-being to the detriment of who comes next. And in the case of retirement, they’re right,” Fink wrote.
He added, “And before my generation fully disappears from positions of corporate and political leadership, we have an obligation to change that.”
Boomer (and older) lawmakers and politicians often don’t see eye-to-eye on how to fix the retirement crisis. But failing to fix the issue damages not only the retirements of individual Americans, but the country’s collective belief in the future of the U.S., Fink noted.
“We risk becoming a country where people keep their money under the mattress and their dreams bottled up in their bedroom,” he noted.
Aimee Picchi
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
Three senior Boeing executives including its CEO are stepping down, the company said Monday, as the company continues to deal with an ongoing scandal surrounding the safety of its passenger jets.
CEO Dave Calhoun confirmed he was leaving the company in a statement, along with Stan Deal, the CEO and president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and Chairman Larry Kellner, who will not stand for reelection at the next shareholders’ annual meeting.
“President and CEO Dave Calhoun today announced his decision to step down as CEO at the end of 2024, and he will continue to lead Boeing through the year to complete the critical work underway to stabilize and position the company for the future,” Boeing said in a statement.
The company has been mired in a succession of negative stories since a door panel blew out on a Boeing 737 Max plane flown by Alaska Airlines in January.
Despite Boeing announcing a range of measures to improve safety and committing to working with federal investigators, some passengers have spoken of feeling nervous climbing on board its aircraft.
In a letter to staff, posted on the Boeing website, Calhoun acknowledged that the Alaska Airlines incident had changed the company.
“As you all know, the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident was a watershed moment for Boeing,” he wrote. “We must continue to respond to this accident with humility and complete transparency. We also must inculcate a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company.”
“The eyes of the world are on us,” he said, referring to ongoing efforts to reassure both the company’s airline customers and the flying public that its aircraft are safe.
The fallout from that fateful flight shows no sign of stopping: The FBI informed passengers last week that they may have been the victims of a crime which the bureau is still investigating.
This is a developing story, check back here for updates soon
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock met with her Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo on Monday for another round of crisis talks amid the increasingly catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
Baerbock has been campaigning for weeks for a humanitarian ceasefire so that the Israeli hostages still being held by the Islamist Hamas can be released and aid supplies can reach the Gaza Strip.
At the start of her almost two-day trip to the Middle East, Baerbock demanded that Israel and Hamas reach an agreement on a temporary ceasefire.
“Only an immediate humanitarian ceasefire that leads to a permanent ceasefire will keep the hope for peace alive – for Palestinians and Israelis alike,” Baerbock said on Sunday.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (2nd L) meets with her Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry (2nd R) at the Foreign Ministry of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Christoph Soeder/dpa
Immigration, the border and the economy have emerged as key issues in this year’s presidential election and may determine who wins the White House. But the person who could tip the scales for either candidate…is another president. Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, widely known by his initials “AMLO.” Charismatic, and often combative, “AMLO” won a landslide victory in 2018 on the promise to root-out corruption, reduce poverty and violent crime. Now, 70 years old and in the final stretch of his term, we met the president in Mexico City for a candid conversation about his handling of immigration, trade, the fentanyl crisis, and the cartels. And he told us why he thinks…when Donald Trump says he is going to shut down the border or build a wall, he’s bluffing.
Sharyn Alfonsi: President Trump is saying he wants to build a wall again.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): On the campaign.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But you don’t think he’d actually do it?
President López Obrador (in Spanish) No, no..
Sharyn Alfonsi: Because? Because he needs Mexico.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Because we understood each other very well. We signed an economic, a commercial agreement that has been favorable for both peoples, for both nations. He knows it. And President Biden, the same.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But what about the people that’ll say, “Oh. But the wall works”?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It doesn’t work!
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
60 Minutes
And President López Obrador says he told that to then-President Trump during a phone call. They were supposed to be discussing the pandemic.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It was an agreement not to speak about the wall because we were not going to agree.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And then you talked about it.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): That was the only time. And I told him, “I am going to send you, Mr. President, some videos of tunnels from Tijuana up to San Diego, that passed right under U.S. Customs.” He stayed quiet, and then he started laughing and told me “I can’t win with you.”
We met President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at Mexico’s National Palace earlier this month. With six months left on his six-year term, López Obrador’s power in Mexico – and influence in the United States – has never been greater. The White House witnessed it – here – last December when a record 250,000 migrants overwhelmed the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
Sharyn Alfonsi: President Biden called you. He sent his Secretary of State. What did they say to you and what did they ask for from you?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): For us to try and contain the flow of migration.
A month later, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported the number of migrant crossing dropped by 50 percent.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So what did you do between December and January that changed that number so dramatically?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): We were more careful about our southern border. We spoke with the presidents of Central America, with the president of Venezuela and with the president of Cuba. We asked them for help in curbing the flow of migrants. However, that is a short-term solution, not a long-term one.
Mexico also increased patrols at the border, flying some migrants to the southern part of Mexico and deporting others. But by February, the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. began to rise again and the Border Patrol expects a sharp increase in that number this spring.
Sharyn ALfonsi and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
60 Minutes
Sharyn Alfonsi: Everybody thinks you have the power in this moment to slow down migration. Do you plan to?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): We do and want to continue doing it, but we do want for the root causes to be attended to, for them to be seriously looked at.
With the ear of the White House – President López Obrador proposed his fix- that the United States commit $20 billion a year to poor countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, lift sanctions on Venezuela, end the Cuban embargo and legalize millions of law-abiding Mexicans living in the U.S.
Sharyn Alfonsi: If they don’t do the things that you said need to be done, then what?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): The flow of migrants… will continue.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Your critics have said what you’re doing, what you’re asking for to help secure the border is diplomatic blackmail. What do you say?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I am speaking frankly, we have to say things as they are, and I always say what I feel. I always say what I think.
Sharyn Alfonsi: If they don’t do those things, will you continue to help to secure the border?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes, because our relationship is very important. It is fundamental.
For much of the last six years, President López Obrador has held a televised 7 a.m. press conference…five days a week. During our visit he was dissecting “fake news.” The briefinglasted more than two hours.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is it a pulpit or is it a press conference?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It is a circular dialogue, even though my opponents say that I am on a pulpit.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
60 Minutes
Time is the only luxury AMLO seems comfortable spending. When he took office, he sold the presidential jet, and his predecessors’ fleet of bulletproof cars in favor of his Volkswagen. He uses his daily briefings to rail against “the elite” and enemies, real and perceived. At times it can feel like a political telenovela. At a briefing last month, the president stunned the audience when he read the cellphone number of a “New York Times” reporter – who was pursuing what he viewed as a critical story of him.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It looks like you were threatening that reporter.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I didn’t do it with the intention of harming her. She, like yourself, are public figures, and I am as well.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But you know this is a dangerous place for reporters. And you know that threats often come in text and phones. When you put her phone number up behind you, you realized what you were doing.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): No, no, no, no. No.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Well, what did you think you were doing?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): It’s a form of responding to a libel. Imagine what it means for this reporter to write that the president of Mexico has connections with drug traffickers… And without having any proof. That is a vile slander.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So then why not just say it’s not true?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Because libel, when it doesn’t stain, it smears.
López Obrador’s bare knuckle brawls with the press are in sharp contrast to the softer approach he’s taken with the drug cartels. He dissolved the federal police and created a National Guard to take over public security and he invested millions to create jobs for young people to escape the grip of the cartels. According to the Mexican government, homicides have dropped almost 20% since he took office. The president calls his approach, “hugs, not bullets.”
Sharyn Alfonsi: How is that working out for Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Very well.
Sharyn Alfonsi: There are still 30,000 homicides in Mexico, and very few of those are prosecuted. So, there’s an idea that there’s still lawlessness in Mexico. Is that fair?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Of course we prosecute them. There is no impunity in Mexico. They all get prosecuted.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It’s a small percent.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): More than before.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a press conference
60 Minutes
According to México Evalúa, a Mexican think tank, about 5% of the country’s homicides are prosecuted. And a study last year reported cartels have expanded their reach, employing an estimated 175,000 people to extort businesses and traffic migrants and drugs into the U.S.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Can you reach the cartel and say, “Knock it off?”
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): No, no, no, no, no. What you have to do with the criminals is apply the law. But I’m not going to establish contact, communication with a criminal, the President of Mexico.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Are you saying you don’t have to reach out to them or communicate with them?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): No, no, no, no, no, because you cannot negotiate with criminals.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The head of the DEA says cartels are mass producing fentanyl, and the U.S. State Department has said that most of it is coming out of Mexico. Are they wrong?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes. Or rather, they don’t have all the information, because fentanyl is also produced in the United States.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The State Department says most of it’s coming from Mexico.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Fentanyl is produced in the United States, in Canada, and in Mexico. And the chemical precursors come from Asia. You know why we don’t have the drug consumption that you have in the United States? Because we have customs, traditions, and we don’t have the problem of the disintegration of the family.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But there is drug consumption in Mexico.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): But very little.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So, why the violence, then, in Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Because drug trafficking exists, but not the consumption.
López Obrador says threats by U.S. lawmakers to shut down the border to curb drug trafficking, is little more than saber rattling. That’s because last year, Mexico became America’s top trading partner.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): They could say, “we are going to close the border,” but we mutually need each other.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What would happen to the U.S. if they closed the border?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): You would not be able to buy inexpensive cars if the border is closed. That is, you would have to pay $10,000, $15,000 dollars more for a car. There are factories in Mexico and there are factories in the United States that are fundamental for all the consumers in the United States and all the consumers in Mexico.
Last year, the Mexican economy grew 3% and unemployment hit a record low. But critics says Mexico’s economic growth isn’t because of the president, rather, in spite of him. López Obrador directed billions to signature mega projects like an oil refinery in his home state and a railroad through the Yucatan Jungle…costing an estimated $28 billion.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What about infrastructure? Aren’t there more dire concerns like, you know, clean water, roads, reliable energy, when you’re trying to attract business to Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): We are doing both, fixing the roads and building this train. It will link all the ancient Mayan cities and is going to allow Mexicans and tourists to enjoy a paradise region that is the southeast of Mexico.
López Obrador has spent unapologetically on social programs – doubling the minimum wage, increasing pensions, and scholarships. His approval rating has remained high – upwards of 60% for most of his presidency.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Your critics say that you’re popular because you give people money. What do you say?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I would say they are partly right. Our formula is simple: It is not to allow corruption; not to make for an ostentatious government, for luxuries; and everything we save we allocate to the people.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Do you think that you’ve been able to get rid of the corruption in Mexico?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Completely?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Yes, basically, because corruption in Mexico started from the top down.
But Transparency International reports no improvement in the corruption problems that have plagued Mexico for decades. Huge crowds gathered last month, accusing the president of trying to eliminate the country’s democratic checks and balances. In June, Mexico will have one of largest elections in its history…in addition to the presidency, 20,000 local positions are up for grabs. The cartels have funded and preyed on local candidates. Last month, two mayoral hopefuls were killed within hours of each other, raising fears of a bloody election.
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): I can travel throughout the entire country without problem. There is no region that I cannot go and visit.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The number of government officials and candidates murdered rose from 94 in 2018 to 355 last year. You don’t view that as a threat to you, obviously, but do you view it as a threat to democracy?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation) No. There are some specific instances. There is no state repression.
Sharyn Alfonsi: But if a candidate’s afraid to run because they may be assassinated, isn’t that a threat to democracy?
President López Obrador (in Spanish/English translation): Generally, they all participate, there are many candidates, from all the parties.
His hand-picked successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, has a commanding lead in the polls, and could become Mexico’s first female president. López Obrador told us when he leaves office, he will retire from politics and write books. But what he does next at the border –or doesn’t do – could shape the next chapter of the United States.
Produced by Michael Karzis. Associate producer, Katie Kerbstat Jacobson. Broadcast associate, Erin DuCharme. Edited by Daniel J. Glucksman
Sharyn Alfonsi
Sharyl Alfonsi is an award-winning correspondent for CBS News’ 60 Minutes.
Women and children are being used as bargaining chips in the kidnapping crisis – Odelyn Joseph/AP
An alarming number of women and children are being kidnapped and used as “bargaining chips” in Haiti, according to the United Nations.
Data shows almost 300 women and children were kidnapped in the first six months of this year – more than the total for 2022 and three times more than in 2021.
Including men, the UN said it has verified 1,014 kidnappings in 2023, mostly for ransom payments though also for recruitment into criminal gangs.
“The stories we are hearing are shocking and unacceptable,” said Gary Conille, Unicef Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Women and children are not commodities. They are not bargaining chips.”
Kidnappers also stand accused of raping and sexually abusing girls to pressure families into paying a ransom, according to the UN Human Rights Office.
“We heard one story of an 11-year-old girl who said she was raped by three men during her kidnapping,” Ricardo Pires, who works at Unicef, told The Telegraph.
Women protest for the release of American nurse Alix Dorsainvil and her daughter, who were kidnapped by armed men, in Port-au-Prince – RALPH TEDY EROL/REUTERS
Haiti has faced crippling violence since the assassination of its presidentwas assassinated two years ago – Odelyn Joseph/AP
According to CARDH, a Haitian human rights group, most kidnappings last 15 days and victims’ families are asked for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of US dollars. “Often after the first payment, the victims are not released and pay a second and a third ransom,” a spokesperson said.
Haiti has faced crippling violence since its president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home two years ago. Elections have not been held since, and the Caribbean nation of 11 million people has no remaining elected officials.
According to the World Bank, nearly 60 per cent of the population now lives below the poverty line, with limited access to basic services. Almost 200 gangs have capitalised on the dire economic situation and scant job prospects by welcoming hundreds of youths into their ranks.
Instead of a working capital city, Port-au-Prince is now disrupted by daily blockades, looting and a widespread terror campaign as the gangs battle to expand their territory.
Criminal organisations dismember bodies, behead rivals and kill minors accused of being informants.
Doctors Without Borders last month announced that it was suspending services in one of its hospitals because some 20 armed men burst into an operating room and abducted a patient.
“There is such contempt for human life among the conflicting parties, and such violence in Port-au-Prince, that even the vulnerable, sick and wounded are not spared,” Mahaman Bachard Iro, the organisation’s head of programmes in Haiti, wrote in a statement.
With each official update, it seems that violence has continued to snowball. In the first three months of 2023, more than 1,630 people were killed, wounded or kidnapped in Haiti, a 30 per cent increase compared to the previous quarter, according to the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti.
More than 165,000 Haitians have also fled their homes, the International Organization for Migration said.
Since April, a brutal vigilante campaign to reclaim the streets of the capital from gangs – known as “bwa kale” – has taken hold. On April 24, 14 presumed gang members were beaten, doused in gasoline and set on fire.
Yet any efforts to mount an international intervention have stalled, largely because no country is prepared to lead it.
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Authoritarianism can be defined in many ways. A judiciary subservient to the ruling regime is one of them.
No one would expect a court in Russia, China, Turkey, Iran or North Korea to mete out true, unbiased justice. In those countries, rule of law is an empty promise. Israel isn’t in the same category, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to weaken his nation’s Supreme Court represents the most ominous threat to Israel’s democracy in its 75-year history.
Can Israel save itself from its anti-democratic backslide? Yes it can, provided that a majority of Israelis join forces with civil society and the high court itself to turn back Netanyahu’s reckless, politically expedient gambit.
It won’t be easy, but legions of Israelis have already shown they can send a strong message warning Netanyahu how far he has dangerously strayed from Israel’s founding ideals. For months, throngs of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to protest their prime minister’s actions. Many reservists in Israel’s military forces expressed their opposition to the judicial overhaul by resigning or threatening to resign. A growing number of Israelis, including high-tech workers, scientists and doctors, have said they arelooking into leaving the country.
Netanyahu put himself in this position by aligning himself with Israel’s far-right Zionist leaders obsessed with settlement expansion in the West Bank and bent on moving the nation away from a pluralistic society at all costs. Netanyahu may be the face of the judicial overhaul, but his far-right allies are the engine behind it.
Netanyahu’s stated rationale for the overhaul is that Israel’s high court has far too much power over the Knesset, the country’s sole legislative chamber. However, a weakened Supreme Court suits Netanyahu perfectly, it gives him a better chance at eluding a potential prison term on pending charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. A majority of Israelis believe Netanyahu’s bid to avoid justice is the real driver behind the judicial overhaul; a recent poll by an Israeli television channel found that nearly 60% of Israelis think that the prime minister is motivated by his personal agenda.
A core element of Netanyahu’s high court overhaul is a law passed late last month that prevents the Supreme Court from overturning government initiatives on the grounds that those measures lack “reasonableness.” That standard is a crucial tenet of judicial oversight, since Israel lacks a formal constitution to serve as a check against legislative overreach. Without it, Netanyahu’s far-right coalition can carry out its hard-line agenda as it pleases. Netanyahu wins, but it’s a monumental loss for a nation that for so long has made democracy an integral part of its identity.
The Biden administration has tried to carefully navigate the Israeli crisis — warning Netanyahu about the pitfalls of forging ahead with the overhaul, while at the same time avoiding the potential for a rift in its relationship with its biggest ally in the Middle East. Though it makes sense for President Joe Biden to keep up the pressure on Netanyahu, ultimately it’s Israel that will have to pull itself away from the precipice. Ironically, the crisis is now squarely in the hands of the Israeli Supreme Court, which must decide whether the law the Knesset passed limiting its power should stand or be overturned.
Both options come with risk for the court and the country. Acquiescence essentially green-lights Netanyahu’s government to do as it wishes, which likely would lead to Israel becoming a Potemkin democracy. Arab minority rights would erode even faster than they have before, and settlements in the West Bank would proliferate in alarmingly greater numbers. Rejecting the law could set up a showdown between the high court and Netanyahu that puts the nation’s military, police and lower courts in the middle, not knowing which side to obey.
In the end, the court really has no option but to strike down Netanyahu’s new law. It’s less about the court’s self-preservation and more about taking a firm stand in defense of Israeli democracy, which surely will wither if the ideal of checks and balances isn’t safeguarded.
It’s also vital that the high court doesn’t take this stand alone. Citizens and Israel’s civil society must stand alongside the Supreme Court in this moment of crisis. The best way to get Netanyahu and his far-right allies to abandon their assault on Israel democracy is to put up a united front.
Like Americans, Israelis hold dear their country’s adherence to democracy. They must continue defending it.
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