A U.S. government team is working with the American Embassy and the authorities in Haiti to recover a group of kidnapped Christian Aid Ministry Missionaries and their children, U.S. officials said yesterday. The recent attack, in which 17 people were kidnapped, is the brazen example of a lack of security in Haiti. Small peaceful protests erupted yesterday in at least eight towns and cities with groups fighting government crackdown on violent gangs across the country. The audacity of the gangs and the police's inability to confine them have rekindled discussions about the possibility of deploying police and security officers from other countries. By many estimates, about half the capital is under the control of armed criminal groups, many of which use kidnappings to raise money. Details: The group is believed to be taken by the 400 Mawozo Gang, a growing menace in Port-au - Prince. The gang has increased territorial control over the past year while the Government struggled to cope with natural disasters and the assassination of the country's president in July. Russia plans to discontinue its diplomatic engagement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said yesterday in the latest sign of unraveling relations between Moscow and The West. The announcement was not apparently accompanied by any military move on Europe by Russia threatening the security of Russia. By the beginning of next month, Russia will withdraw the activities of its representative office at NATO Headquarters in Moscow and halt diplomatic credentials from emissaries of the alliance working in Brussels. Because of NATO s specific steps, proper conditions for elemental diplomatic activity don t exist, Lavrov said. NATO s response was muted. We have taken note of the decision by Russia to suspend the work of its diplomatic mission, a spokeswoman, Oana Lungescu, said. Despite its changes, NATO's policy toward Russia remains consistent. We reinforced our deterrence and defense in response to Russia's aggressive actions, while at the same time we remain open to dialogue. Colin Powell, former top military officer, died suddenly at 84 from complications of Covid - 19, his family said. The former diplomat and national security adviser served as the country s first-emerged black national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state.
The many schools named in Colin Powell pay tribute to him.
It is the memory of Colin Powell, a general who stayed true to his roots. As part of the Reagan administration, Mikhail Gorbachev helped to negotiate arms treaties and an era of cooperation with Powell, then Soviet president. He was the architect of the invasion of Iraq in 1989 and of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, which shrank Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, but left him at power in Panama. By the time he retired in 1993, Powell was the most popular public figure in America. But his return to the post of secretary of state in 2001 was difficult. He clashed with conservatives on George W. Bush's foreign policy team and his address to the U.N. in 2003 helped pave the way for the U.S. to go to war in Iraq, a speech which he later said he regretted.
A new antimachismo hotline in Bogot, the Colombian capital, takes calls from men struggling with jealousy, control and fear. It challenges long-held assumptions about masculinity. I believed, and others believed, that men who commit suicide would not call us to ask for help, said one of the psychologists presiding at the hotline. But something is happening and maybe it is because the old male model doesn't work anymore. How a nuclear bomb could save the earth An atom blast is not the preferred option for planetary defense, but 3 - D models are helping scientists prepare decades ahead of time should a stray asteroid come calling, Robin George Andrews reports for The Times.
The focus is on relatively small asteroids, about the size of football stadiums. They are notable for their abundance as well as their ability to get away from asteroid-hunting observatories. The shock wave from a meteor 200 feet that exploded over Washington, D.C. in 1908 leveled 800 square miles of forest — the size of the entire Siberia area. A stealthy asteroid as long as 330 feet could be blasted out of Earth s way by one-megaton nuclear device, with 99.9 percent of its mass being annihilated if the asteroid is attacked at least two months before impact, scientists reported in a study published this month. If using a nuclear blast to obliterate an interplanetary interloper will always be the last resort, said Patrick Michel, an interplanetary expert at the Observatoire de la C te d Azur who was not involved in the study. But if we are short on time, it will be our only hope. For a worst-case scenario, read more about preparations.
That s all for today's briefing. The word tankies appeared in The Times over the weekend for the first time.