International
NATO wraps up its main partners in the Indo-Pacific to exert pressure on China
The NATO summit in Washington has made clear the Alliance’s support in its main partners in the Indo-Pacific -Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand-, with whom it shares the interest of stopping China and North Korea as their relations with Russia increase the risk on the interests of the bloc.
NATO, born 75 years ago to provide security to the North Atlantic area in a context of cold war with the Soviet Union, has been strengthening its cooperation with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, known as the IP4 group, for years, but that relationship has intensified and its leaders participate significantly in a summit for the third consecutive year against the background of an increasingly militaryly powerful China.
The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, yesterday made some harsh statements against China for its “responsibility” in the war in Ukraine, today he expressed concern about the strengthened relationship between Russia and North Korea, which is the reason for “usual discussions” between the two groups.
Stoltenberg accused China yesterday of “steering up the Russian war economy” by supplying Moscow with technology and microchips used to attack Ukraine, something that Beijing described today as an “unfounded” denunciation of NATO, which seeks to “establish an imaginary enemy to justify its expansion and power.”
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, China has assumed an ambiguous and equidistant position with both parties and that adds to the growing tensions between the Asian country and NATO due to other factors such as Chinese military expansion, its economic influence and its relationship with Russia.
This morning, when receiving South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Stoltenberg emphasized the fear of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, strengthened after the agreement they signed last month and which, he suggested, could result in “support for Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.”
The importance of the Indo-Pacific partners for the Alliance was also reflected in the meeting of their leaders on the sidelines of the summit with the host, US President Joe Biden, where they “viercally condemned” the “illicit” transfers of weapons from Pyongyang to Moscow.
The leaders of IP4 also participated in a session with the 32 heads of state and government of NATO, plus the European Union, focused on China’s role in the “Russian war economy.”
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, future head of European diplomacy, warned there that the cooperation or relationship between the allied countries and their partners in the Pacific with Beijing could be “very damaged if China continues to support Russia in this war.”
“In the context of an interconnected environment of threats, which is characterized by the deepening of the Russia-North Korea military partnership and China’s support for Russia’s industrial defensive base, NATO benefits from exchanging knowledge and experiences” with IP4, the White House explained in a note.
The first meeting of the Alliance with IP4 was in 2016 and was raised to the level of leaders at the Madrid summit in 2022, when NATO for the first time included China among its strategic priorities because Beijing’s ambitions and its “coercive policies,” he said, challenge its “interests, security and values.”
In addition, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States participate in the AUKUS military partnership since 2021, very focused on this first phase on the development of defense capabilities with submarines and technological development, with a clear focus of deterrence against Chinese expansionist ambitions in its area of influence in the South China Sea.
In the Washington summit statement on Wednesday, the allies reiterated that statement about China, included their concern about its partnership with Russia and warned that they face “hybrid, cyber, spatial threats” and “malicious activities of state and non-state actors.”
The Alliance is not aware that Beijing is supplying weapons directly to Russia, unlike North Korea or Iran, but considers that it sends it the technology and microelectronics necessary to create armaments, hence the hard turn in language over the Asian country.
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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