'Extreme brutality': UN, aid groups warn Haiti unrest soaring
"Entire families have been brutally wiped out in their homes, while others, including children and babies, have been shot dead as they tried to escape," the group, organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement Monday.
Gangs control large portions of Haiti, including the majority of the capital, and violence has soared despite the arrival of hundreds of police personnel as part of a Kenya-led multinational security support mission (MSS).
"We are deeply alarmed and dismayed by the unacceptable and inhuman intensity of the violence raging in Haiti, a wave of extreme brutality which, since the end of January, has resulted in the loss of many lives," the group said.
It said 4,000 people had been forced to flee the Kenscoff area of the capital, along with 2,000 more from the Delmas, Port-au-Prince and Petion-ville municipalities.
The group called on "all parties involved in this violence to break this cycle of terror and put an end to this uncontrolled spiral."
Fresh attacks occurred late Monday nights, said residents of two neighborhoods in the capital.
"They set fire to our house with my father inside. It's cruel," a resident who managed to flee the area told AFP.
Another said the attack came early in the morning as vigilante security forces were resting. "The bandits attacked us by surprise," she said.
Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas, has long been mired in instability, but conditions severely worsened early last year when gangs launched coordinated attacks in the capital to force then-prime minister Ariel Henry to resign.
He handed power to an interim government, which along with the MSS has struggled to wrest back control from the gangs.
The UN-approved MSS has around 1,000 personnel from six nations, though mostly from Kenya, out of 2,500 initially expected. One Kenyan officer died after being shot on Sunday.
UN officials have repeatedly called for more support for the mission and a surge of resources to the nation, where an estimated one million people have been displaced by the violence.
Last week, the UN launched an appeal for over $900 million in aid for Haiti this year, a sharp increase from 2024, which was only 44-percent funded.
The UN recorded 5,600 deaths linked to gang violence last year, in a 20-percent increase compared to 2023, as well as 1,500 kidnappings, nearly 6,000 gender-based violence cases, 69 percent of which were instances of sexual assault.
On Monday, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime said authorities were "at war" with the gangs.
"We are relentlessly committed to enabling the police, the army and MSS to put gangs out of action," he promised in a speech to mark his 100 days in office.
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Newsweek
24 minutes ago
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The Bulletin July 2, 2025
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Vox
an hour ago
- Vox
Zohran Mamdani's not-so-radical agenda
is a correspondent at Vox, where he covers the impacts of social and economic policies. He is the author of 'Within Our Means,' a biweekly newsletter on ending poverty in America. Zohran Mamdani's policy ideas might not always be the answer voters are looking for, but the dignity underlying his whole agenda is. Madison Swart/Hans Luca /AFP via Getty Images Last week, New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani sent shockwaves through the political establishment after he clinched the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor. Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, defeated a crowded field, which included former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, by double digits. Turnout was higher than usual, especially among younger voters, indicating that Mamdani's campaign energized New York City residents in ways few people expected. Throughout his campaign, and especially since the stunning upset, Mamdani has faced attacks from both Republicans and centrist Democrats that paint him as far too extreme for New York City, let alone America. Part of that caricature is clearly fueled by racism — Mamdani is a Muslim immigrant born to Indian parents in Uganda — with Republicans sharing photos of the Statue of Liberty dressed in a burqa, saying Mamdani is uncivilized for eating with his hands, and calling for the 33-year-old candidate to be denaturalized and subsequently deported. It's also part of the backlash to Mamdani's support for Palestinian rights, as even members of his own party baselessly accuse him of peddling antisemitism. Related The Democratic Party is ripe for a takeover But much of the criticism has also centered on Mamdani's campaign promises, which pledge to make New York City more affordable in small but meaningful ways with rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, and fare-free buses. Some of that criticism is very heated: Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, for example, called Mamdani's rent stabilization proposal 'the second-best way to destroy a city, after bombing.' Many argue that Mamdani is only offering pie-in-the-sky proposals — nice policies in an ideal world, but unachievable in our not-so-ideal reality. But Mamdani's splashy policies aren't exactly foreign ideas, nor is he the first to try to implement them. They've been tried before, often with promising results. Mamdani's policies aren't reckless; they're tested Let's take three of his policies that have gotten some of the most attention: 1. Rent freeze Mamdani has proposed to impose a rent freeze. That means that landlords would be unable to raise the rents on roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments across the city. This mostly falls within the mayor's jurisdiction: Rent hikes (or freezes) are decided by the Rent Guidelines Board, whose nine members are appointed by the mayor. And if elected mayor in November, Mamdani can appoint members to the board who pledge to freeze the rent. As dramatic as the negative response has been, this isn't exactly a novel idea. In just the past decade — during Bill de Blasio's tenure as the city's mayor — the board froze the rent on three occasions: in 2015, 2016, and in 2020. (Those freezes, it should be noted, are hardly, if ever, blamed for worsening the city's housing problems.) Mamdani's proposal also doesn't mean that a rent freeze will be permanent. The idea is to hold rents where they are to give tenants a chance to catch up to the rising cost of living. (In Mayor Eric Adams's first three years in office, for example, the board raised the rents by a combined 9 percent.) Opponents to this plan often point to the piles of literature that show the pitfalls of rent control in the long run — that it disincentivizes landlords to provide services and ultimately leaves apartments in disrepair. But those arguments conveniently leave out some key parts of this debate. Under New York's rent stabilization laws, landlords who invest in meaningfully improving their apartments are allowed to increase rents beyond the guidelines set by the board, meaning that landlords can't really use a rent freeze as an excuse to leave their apartments in bad conditions. More than that, Mamdani's plan for a rent freeze doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's part of a broader plan to spur investment in housing and improve renters' lives, which include changing zoning laws, cutting red tape to get more housing built more quickly across the city, and cracking down on crooked landlords by more strictly and efficiently enforcing New York's housing codes. Put another way, Mamdani's rent freeze is not presented as the solution to New York's housing crisis. It's just one part of a bigger toolkit that can help tenants in the near term while the other tools finally put housing costs under control in the long run. 2. City-owned grocery stores Mamdani's suggestion of city-owned grocery stores has irked some entrepreneurs to the point that one supermarket mogul threatened to close down all of his stores if Mamdani becomes mayor. The rationale behind this proposal is that a publicly owned grocery store would make food more affordable. The store wouldn't have to worry about making a profit or paying rent, and those savings would be passed onto consumers by lowering the price of goods. Some of Mamdani's critics have seized on this plan to call him a communist who would put private businesses and consumer choice at risk. The government, they argue, shouldn't be operating businesses because governments are an inefficient alternative to the private market. The reality is that public-owned stores aren't exactly new, let alone a threat. Several states, from Alabama to Virginia, have publicly owned liquor stores — a product of the post-prohibition period where states took more control over the sale and distribution of alcohol — and boast of their success. (Virginia's government website, for example, notes its state-owned liquor stores' 'history of giving back to Virginians' and highlights that it has generated more than $1 billion in revenue for six consecutive years.) Other cities across the country are also trying their hand at publicly owned grocery stores. In St. Paul, Kansas, for example, the municipality-owned grocery store helped end the city's nearly two-decade run without a grocery store. In Madison, Wisconsin, a municipally owned grocery store is set to open later this summer, and other cities, including Chicago and Atlanta, are planning to dabble in this experiment as well. Mamdani's proposal for publicly owned grocery stores is also far more rational and modest than the state-monopoly model of liquor stores: He's merely proposing a pilot program of just five city-owned grocery stores — one in each borough — in a sea of some 15,000 privately owned grocery stores. If the pilot program succeeds and satisfies New Yorkers' needs, then it could be expanded. 3. Fare-free buses One of Mamdani's signature wins as a New York State Assembly member was his push for a fare-free bus pilot on five lines in New York City. As mayor, he promises to expand fare-free buses across the city to make public transit more accessible. It's also good environmental policy that helps alleviate traffic because it encourages people to ditch their cars and ride the bus instead. Fare-free transit experiments in various cities have already shown promising results. In Boston, a fare-free bus pilot after the pandemic found that bus lines without fares recovered ridership much faster than the rest of the transit system. A year-and-a-half after the initial Covid lockdowns — when transit ridership cratered across the country — one fare-free bus line in Boston saw ridership bounce back to 92 percent of pre-pandemic levels, while the rest of the city's transit system was stuck near 50 percent. According to an article by Mamdani and his colleague in the state legislature, in New York City, the lines included in the fare-free bus pilot showed an increase in ridership across the board, and of the new riders those lines lured, the highest share was among people making less than $28,000 a year. Of course, fare-free transit should be a secondary goal. After all, what good is a free fare if the buses won't get you to where you need to go, let alone get you there in time? But Mamdani's plan makes clear that he's not just interested in making transit free, but fast and reliable as well. His fare-free proposal is packaged with a commitment to invest in improving infrastructure — like building more dedicated lanes — to make bus trips more efficient. There are plenty of avenues to raise revenue for that kind of investment, from imposing a new tax to introducing schemes like congestion pricing, as New York already has. Plus, if making buses free makes people more likely to get out of cars and ride public transit instead, then that is a worthwhile investment. What Mamdani's policies could mean for the future of Democratic politics Ultimately, Mamdani's policies also proved to be good politics, at least good enough for a Democratic primary. Part of the reason Mamdani's policies might have resonated with so many voters is that they are, in many ways, a promise to reshape government — not into a communist haven on the Hudson, but into a government that owns up to its responsibility to provide all of its people with a dignified life. That's why ideas like fare-free transit aren't solely about saving $2.90 on a bus ride. It's true that there are plenty of reasonable arguments against fare-free transit: Eliminating fares would get rid of a reliable source of revenue for transit agencies. Solely relying on taxes to fund public transportation potentially makes transit systems more volatile and susceptible to politics, where they can be used as a bargaining chip in the legislature's tax bills. And there are other ways to make transit affordable to those in need, including existing subsidies that reduce fares for low-income commuters. But these arguments miss the broader appeal of agendas like Mamdani's, which are a commitment to expand the government's role in our daily lives in positive ways. Despite the depiction of Mamdani as a radical socialist, his agenda, at its core, actually promises something much more ideologically modest: making government more likable by making it work well. So his overarching goal as mayor, it seems, would be to make people believe that effective governance is possible — that local government can tangibly improve the quality of life in a city by being more present and, not to mention, pleasant to deal with. This is not to say that Mamdani's primary win will reshape American politics — or even Democratic primaries in other cities. But Mamdani is onto something, and Democrats might be well-served by looking at his not-so-radical agenda and understanding that people want more from their own governments. Mamdani's ideas, like publicly owned grocery stores, might not always be the answer voters are looking for, but the dignity underlying his whole agenda is.
Time Magazine
2 hours ago
- Time Magazine
Who Could Be Thailand's Next Prime Minister? Scenarios, Explained
History has a habit of repeating itself—but rarely as frequently as it does in Thailand. It was less than a year ago when the country ousted its fifth Prime Minister in 20 years, and already it looks set to oust another. Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who succeeded her fellow Pheu Thai party member Srettha Thavisin in August 2024, was suspended by the Constitutional Court on July 1 pending a ruling on an ethics complaint stemming from her controversial handling of a border dispute with Cambodia. Paetongtarn's deputy, Suriya Juangroongruangkit, initially stepped in as caretaker, though his rein was short-lived as he was soon replaced on July 3 by Pheu Thai veteran and former Defense Minister Phumtham 'Big Comrade' Wechayachai, following a cabinet reshuffle. Whether by court order, resignation, or political maneuvering, experts say, it's unlikely Paetongtarn will ever return to the premiership. What comes next, however, is far from clear. The populist Pheu Thai party—which has largely been seen as a political vehicle for Paetongtarn's influential father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra—took power after 2023 elections in which it finished second to the progressive reformist Move Forward party. In what was described at the time as a devil's bargain, Pheu Thai partnered with conservative and military-aligned parties it had campaigned against to form a fragile coalition government. In recent weeks, that fragile coalition has fallen apart. Its second-largest member party, Bhumjaithai, defected to the opposition. And remaining member parties have demanded concessions and threatened to leave, too. Should Paetongtarn be removed or resign, the Thai National Assembly will have to vote on a new Prime Minister—but only Prime Minster candidates from the 2023 election would be eligible. If a majority of lawmakers can't agree on a new leader, the caretaker would stay in place until the deadlock is broken. But if a majority of lawmakers can't agree on a new leader but can get behind a no-confidence vote on the Pheu Thai-led government, then parliament would be dissolved and fresh elections would be held—two years ahead of schedule. As much as the broader view of Thai politics seems to end up in the same place over and over again, the details of its twists and turns along the way can also be unpredictable, and no one knows exactly what lies ahead. Here are four possible paths to know. Read More: Exclusive: Thai Princes Banished Again as Eldest Says 'I Did Nothing Wrong' The ruling party holds on, with another new leader Pheu Thai fielded three candidates in the last election: Srettha, Paetongtarn, and Chaikasem Nitisiri. With Srettha gone and Paetongtarn likely on her way out, Chaikasem would be its last option. Chaikasem, who turns 77 in August, has extensive government experience: a former attorney general, he served as Minister of Justice under former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinwatra—Thaksin's sister and Paetongtarn's aunt—until that government was overthrown in 2014. But there are a number of issues surrounding Chaikasem that 'his opponents could exploit,' Napon Jatusripitak, visiting fellow and acting coordinator of the Thailand Studies Programme at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, tells TIME. Chaikasem has previously expressed openness to amending Thailand's controversial lèse-majesté law, which crosses a red line for many conservative royalists. His health has also been a concern, after he suffered a stroke while on the campaign trail in 2023. Chaikasem has tried to allay concerns about his health, telling reporters recently: 'The stroke issue is no longer a problem. The large and small blood clots in my neck have dissolved, and my life is back to normal. I was able to play golf comfortably yesterday.' He offered himself as ready albeit reluctant to step up. 'I would be willing to serve if assigned. But if I had a choice, I'd rather not — that would suit me just as well,' he said. 'Am I ready to take on the premiership? As long as I remain in politics, I must always be prepared. But do I truly want to be Prime Minister? Who would willingly take on such an exhausting job? I wouldn't. I'd rather spend time with my family and do whatever I please.' Conservatives push a military return to power Right now, the Pheu Thai-led coalition still holds a slim majority. But three medium-sized junior parties—United Thai Nation, the Klatham Party, and the Democrat Party—are sizable enough that their defection would tilt the balance. Of those, only United Thai Nation has a viable path to the premiership. United Thai Nation, the party of former junta leader Prayut Chan-o-cha, is an ultra-conservative, pro-military, pro-monarchy party that fielded two Prime Minister candidates in the last election: Prayut, a former army general who seized power in 2014 and whose premiership until 2023 was marked by authoritarianism and crackdowns on democracy, and Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, the party's current leader and a deputy prime minister and energy minister in the current government. While some observers have speculated that Pirapan could make a play for the premiership, Napon says he does not have adequate support from even within his own party. Pirapan is being investigated by a national anti-corruption commission over an alleged ethics violation. Prayut, on the other hand, could emerge as a 'wildcard' candidate, Napon says, for conservatives to unite behind, if there's an impasse in parliament. Following UTN's decisive defeat at the polls in 2023, Prayut announced his retirement from politics, though he was appointed to the King's body of advisers later in the year. While Prayut is only eligible to serve two more years before he reaches constitutional term limits, Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political scientist at Ubon Ratchathani University in Thailand, tells TIME that he could potentially pursue a comeback to lead the country until its next elections in 2027 by leveraging his 'connections with the military and the establishment' to present himself as a 'reassuring' intracoalition option for Pheu Thai patriarch Thaksin, who faces multiple legal battles including a lèse-majesté prosecution, to back. 'That means the power is still controlled by the elite and the conservative establishment,' which could be a positive for Thaksin, says Titipol, though he adds: 'I don't think it would be good for the future of Thai democracy.' A 'frenemy' rejoins the coalition to helm it—or leads a new interim government with the support of the opposition The biggest blow to Pheu Thai in recent weeks has been the defection of its largest coalition partner, Bhumjaithai. The third-largest party in parliament, behind Move Forward's new incarnation the People's Party and Pheu Thai, Bhumjaithai was the largest coalition partner of the previous Prayut-led government and had made decriminalizing marijuana the centerpiece of its 2019 campaign. Its leader, former Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, sought the premiership in 2023 and, after joining the Pheu Thai-led coalition government—despite Pheu Thai's campaign promises to recriminalize marijuana—was placed in charge of the powerful Interior Ministry. But in June, ahead of a contentious cabinet reshuffle that was expected to see Anutin lose his post, Bhumjaithai left the coalition, and Pheu Thai quickly moved to recriminalize marijuana. Bhumjaithai originally said it would call for a no-confidence vote, but on July 3, after officially joining the opposition, it said it would hold off. The head of the opposition, People's Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, suggested that to avoid political deadlock, one scenario could be for the opposition to back a 'caretaker government' with a limited, clear mandate until new elections, focusing on stability and democratic reforms. 'I cannot speak unilaterally,' Natthaphong said. 'Ultimately, the other side—the Bhumjaithai Party and Mr. Anutin himself—must also be in agreement with us.' Anutin, however, denied agreeing to such a plan. 'I have never proposed myself as an interim prime minister. The claim is untrue,' he said, adding that further discussions would need to take place. Napon is skeptical that a Bhumjaithai-People's Party alliance would work. If the People's Party helps Anutin achieve the premiership but opts to remain in the opposition rather than joining the government, as it said it would, 'there's a real risk that the result would be an unstable minority government that struggles to pass key legislation,' says Napon. 'Would the People's Party then be expected to help get it over the line? If so, wouldn't that blur the boundary between government and opposition?' Furthermore, 'there are no guarantees that the new government would deliver on the People's Party's conditions—namely, constitutional reform and the [eventual] dissolution of the House.' But those concerns assume the plan even gets off the ground. The first issue, Napon says, is that the two parties alone fall short of a majority needed to decide the next Prime Minister. 'They would still need to court additional MPs—potentially from hard-to-please parties.' 'Even though the People's Party has backed away from its earlier push to amend the lèse-majesté law, any form of deal-making with the party could still be viewed unfavorably by the conservative establishment, which continues to wield significant influence over the scope and longevity of Thai democracy,' Napon adds. 'Such a move could backfire on Bhumjaithai and undermine its efforts in recent years to position itself as a protector of conservative interests and a reliable ally of the establishment.' Napon believes that Anutin may be using interest in cooperation from the People's Party to 'make himself appear more valuable and viable' to the conservative establishment—and Pheu Thai. 'By suggesting that the People's Party is open to backing him under certain terms, he positions himself as the candidate with the broadest potential appeal. In reality, though, it is still Pheu Thai—not the People's Party—that holds the key to delivering him the numbers. The People's Party serves more as a political prop that will allow Anutin to raise his price in the eyes of the establishment and potential coalition partners.' A renegotiation between Pheu Thai and Bhumjaithai is not off the table, says Titipol. The two parties have historically been 'frenemies,' he says, and while they differ on marijuana policy, they do not have any repelling fundamental ideologies that could prevent them from reconciling. Anutin, according to Napon, was already 'best positioned' to be the coalition's next Prime Minister after Paetongtarn, and the Constitutional Court dropping a case against Bhumjaithai the same day it suspended Paetongtarn sent a 'strong signal' that there's support for the party within the establishment. 'I can see a scenario where Pheu Thai would be forced to support Anutin as Prime Minister,' says Napon, 'because it has no other options' that would keep it even in proximity to power. Progressives win a fresh election A very unlikely but not technically impossible option would be for Pheu Thai to relinquish its hold on government and choose to dissolve parliament—a move which the party has already said it won't do—or for the opposition to get a majority of members to support a no-confidence motion, which People's Party leader and leader of the opposition Natthaphong has reiterated is his preferred course of action. Either scenario would fast-track a new general election, which would allow voters to have their say on who gets to replace Paetongtarn. A June poll from the National Institute of Development Administration shows that the People's Party remains the public's top choice: nearly 1-in-3 respondents picked 38-year-old Natthaphong as their preferred next Prime Minister, followed by about 13% picking Prayut and 10% picking Anutin, while about 20% of respondents said they hadn't decided on a preference yet. But as the last election showed, Thailand isn't a democracy, and the people's pick won't necessarily take power following an election. 'The establishment and the deals are always made by those who are in power, and people don't actually have much say on that,' says Titipol. Still, he adds, an election would allow people to 'express their frustration' and 'dissatisfaction.' And while 'crony politics' seems unshakeable, he says, for many, optimism is too: 'In Thailand, actually, anything is possible, even if it is impossible.'
