International
The battle of the tribes of California for Biden to protect their ancestral lands
A coalition of Native American tribes from California is fighting an intense struggle for the president of the United States, Joe Biden, to protect their ancestral lands, a vast territory of 400,000 hectares that treasures not only rare species of flora and fauna, but also the legacy of peoples who have lived for centuries with that sacred nature.
This contest has been ongoing for years but it becomes more urgent in the face of the proximity of the November elections, in which Biden will again face the Republican Donald Trump, who during his term (2017-2021) approved oil projects that harmed the Native Americans.
The lands they are fighting for are “irreplaceable,” Thomas Tortez, president of the Torres Martínez desert indigenous people and who has asked Biden to declare about 267,000 hectares as a national monument in the Chuckwalla Valley, in Southern California, explained to EFE and expand the Joshua Tree National Park.
“When someone goes to a sanctuary and it catches fire or is knocked down, they can erect another temple in another place. But when the site that embodies our culture is intrinsically linked to a place and a specific land like the one we have here, there is no human way to replace it,” Tortez says vehemently.
Therefore, he urges Biden to protect the lands of his tribe using the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president the ability to create national monuments on federal land without having to go through Congress.
The lands that Tortez defends are, in large part, desert. It might seem that they are sterile, devoid of life, but for Native Americans, this area contains a rich history, with plants that can be used for medicinal, food or spiritual purposes, and animals that have coexisted with the community for centuries.
Even the hills, with their tones ranging from magenta to lighter shades of red, are interpreted by Native Americans as a reminder of the stories of creation and the presence of divinity, says Tortez.
In addition to protecting these lands, the tribal coalition seeks Biden to expand and designate four other national monuments in California.
Among them, the effort of the tribes of the Tataviam Fernandeño and Gabrieleno missions to expand the national monument of the San Gabriel mountains, near Los Angeles, on about 44,100 hectares, stands out.
Within this territory are the remains of three indigenous peoples prior to the Spanish colonization and that are of great importance for the tribes, whose families go there to teach their origins to the new generations, the president of the Tataviam Fernandeño missions, Rudy Ortega Jr., explained to EFE.
Ortega Jr., whose father was also the leader of the tribe for five decades, believes that this effort to expand the national monument of the San Gabriel mountains is part of the struggle that his tribe has fought for centuries to protect its territory.
In its beginnings, its land covered more than 600,000 hectares, from the Antelope Valley to the Pacific Ocean. However, by 1900, it was reduced to zero, and since then they have had to fight to recover their lands.
Another objective of the coalition is to achieve the designation as a national monument of almost 81,000 hectares in the mountainous area of Lake Medicine, which would make it possible to safeguard the heritage of peoples with a long history in that area of northern California, such as the Pit River tribe.
The Quechan tribe of Fort Yuma also longs for the Kw’tsán mountains to be established as a national monument, and finally, the yocha dehe wintun nation wants the Berryessa Snow Mountain national monument to be expanded and Molok Luyuk to be permanently protected, which translates as “condor crest.”
These lands embody the soul of the tribes. As Anthony Roberts, leader of the yocha dehe wintun nation, told EFE, ensuring the protection of those territories is part of the “sacred responsibility” that those peoples have with nature, from which all forms of life emanate.
International
85% of Haiti’s capital has fallen into the power of gangs, according to UN reports
The power of criminal gangs in Haiti continues to grow and at the moment they control about 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to “certain estimates” that this Monday were cited in the UN Security Council by Miroslav Jenca, Undersecretary General for Europe, Asia and the Americas in the UN Political Affairs Department.
The gangs have begun to attack the places of “relative security” that remained in the capital, such as the Petionville neighborhood, where UN offices, embassies and foreign personnel are located. There, an attack recorded last Tuesday left “dozens dead,” he said.
In response, spontaneous groups of neighbors have begun to organize armed patrols, to set up unofficial road controls “and to take justice into their hands,” Jenca lamented.
The number of displaced people reaches 700,000
In the vast areas where gangs have control, the security and human rights of their inhabitants are in danger, and especially those of women, since gang members resort to all forms of violence, often sexual violence, to subjugate neighbors.
This situation has caused 700,000 Haitians to flee their homes and are now in a situation of “internally displaced people.”
Despite this, neighboring countries continue to deport Haitians (170,000 so far), mainly from the Dominican Republic, although Jenca did not cite this country.
What is the situation of the Multinational Mission to contain gangs in Haiti?
The Multinational Security Mission that was supposed to train the Haitian police has so far received only 400 agents of the 2,500 that it must gather, mainly due to lack of funds, and the prospects are so pessimistic that the Government of Haiti has already asked that the MMS be transformed into a classic mission of “blue helmets”.
However, this will not be easy because so far Russia and China oppose the deployment of a peace mission in Haiti arguing that the last mission of this type left the country among very serious accusations of sexual abuse and having caused and spread in 2010 a cholera epidemic that was fatal for the country, leaving thousands dead.
International
One-week preventive detention for Princess Mette-Marit’s son of Norway for rape
An Oslo court issued this Wednesday preventive detention of one week with a ban on visits for Marius Borg Høiby, son of Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, for two cases of rape of two different women.
Høiby, 27 years old and the result of a previous relationship with the princess, had been arrested on Monday night for the third time since August for an alleged rape, but the Prosecutor’s Office revealed today at the end of the hearing, held behind closed doors, that another case had been discovered during the investigation.
The young man, who is not part of the Royal House, is also being investigated for injuries and damages against three of his ex-girlfriends and for threats to a man.
Prison for two cases of rape in Norway
The hearing began at 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) and ended two hours later, but Judge Anne-Lene Åvangen Hødnebø did not issue her opinion until after 22:00.
According to public television NRK, the police used as evidence recordings found on Høiby’s phone.
In both cases it is sexual intercourse without penetration, reported the Prosecutor’s Office, which had requested two weeks in prison.
“The reason we asked for two weeks is that we discovered another violation last night. It is a case of sexual relationship without intercourse with a woman unable to resist the act. We are investigating two rape cases,” prosecutor Andreas Kruszewski said at the end of the hearing.
HØiby’s lawyer, Øyvind Bratlien, stated that his defendant denies the accusations and described the allegations as a “catastrophic” error of judgment.
Three arrests since August
Høiby was arrested on Monday night when he was driving with his ex-girlfriend, the protagonist of the incident that led to the first arrest and which he is forbidden to contact.
His home in Skaugum, on the same property where Crown Princes Haakon and Mette-Marit reside, was searched by police officers.
According to Norwegian media, the first alleged rape occurred at the young woman’s home in March of this year; the other, in her residence in Skaugum a few weeks ago.
It is the third arrest of Høiby, who was arrested a few hours ago in early August after an incident in his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and was accused of injuries, damage and threats, in a case that was later expanded and that also includes two of his previous partners and another person.
Høiby admitted a few days after his arrest in August in a statement part of the accusations and admitted to having problems with alcohol and other drugs and suffering from mental problems.
The Royal House is reluctant to talk about the case
The Norwegian Royal House has been reluctant to comment on the case of the young Marius Borg Høiby, which has generated a lot of media attention in this Nordic country, and only Prince Haakon has made statements.
“I think Marius faces serious accusations. The judicial system must do its job,” Haakon said today from Jamaica, where he attended an event organized by the UN.
The heir to the Norwegian throne said that as “parents” they have tried to get the young man to receive “help.”
Høiby is the result of a previous relationship of Mette-Marit and has no official commitments to the Royal House, although he attends some celebrations such as the birthdays of his stepbrothers and has always maintained the relationship with both Haakon and Kings Harald V and Sonia.
International
The next attorney general Matt Gaetz manages to stop the report on his sex scandal
The Ethics Committee of the US House of Representatives did not make public this Wednesday due to lack of agreement the report of its investigation into Matt Gaetz, nominated by President-elect Donald Trump, to be the next attorney general and investigated for inappropriate sexual behavior and drug use.
The president of that commission, Republican Michael Guest, told the press at the end of the nearly two-hour meeting at the Capitol that there was no consensus among the members when making that document public.
That body was going to put its decision to a vote last Friday, but Gaetz’s resignation from his seat two days earlier, after being appointed by Trump, delayed that scrutiny and effectively ended the investigations into him.
Although with the departure of the Florida representative of Congress, the commission was left without jurisdiction to investigate him, the publication of the conclusions of his investigation opened in 2021 for alleged inappropriate sexual conduct, irregular use of campaign funds, acceptance of bribes and drug use was still in the air.
Committee interviews
The committee interviewed two women who testified that Gaetz, nominated for attorney general, paid them for having sex at a party in Florida, where prostitution is illegal.
According to the women’s lawyer to the NBC News channel, Joel Leppard, one of them also testified that she saw Gaetz having sex with a minor, although he said that he did not think he knew that he was 17 years old at the time.
Gaetz has denied those accusations and Trump’s transition team considers them unfounded and recalls that the Department of Justice closed a parallel investigation without charges.
Review of the report
Several senators, both Republicans and Democrats, had said that they wanted to review that report before the Judicial Committee of the Upper House examines Gaetz’s nomination next year and then the plenary of that hemicycle validates or stops it.
The authorization of the positions of the future cabinet depends on the Senate, but until then Gaetz has the support of Trump, who has stated that he does not question his own decision, and also of the future vice president, JD Vance, who accompanied him to Congress this Wednesday.
Report on Gaetz next attorney general has had leaks
However, although the House Committee on the House of Representatives stopped the dissemination of the report, there have already been leaks in the national press.
The lawyer of the two women indicated that they provided that committee with numerous photos related to the time they spent with the Republican, who according to that lawyer paid 6,000 dollars to one and 4,000 to another to sleep with them.
The leader of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, had wanted to stay out of the committee’s decision, but at the same time he did not consider it appropriate for it to disseminate his investigation: “That would open Pandora’s box and I don’t think it’s something healthy for the institution,” he said.
85% of Haiti’s capital has fallen into the power of gangs, according to UN reports
One-week preventive detention for Princess Mette-Marit’s son of Norway for rape
The next attorney general Matt Gaetz manages to stop the report on his sex scandal
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