Despite the pandemic, despite the repression and sometimes despite the rain, Colombian youth have been in the streets for a month. “We have no job and no future. We have nothing to lose except our lives ”, explained Jeyson, 19, and tattoos everywhere in mid-May. He lives in a hovel in the suburbs of the city of Cali and is part of the Primera Linea (First Line), the improvised order service responsible for ensuring the safety of the demonstrators and keeping the barricades which, here and there, block the avenues of the city. “The police shoot us on sight, the president sends the army. If the international press were not there, we would be massacred. How do you want us to believe in dialogue? “, Jeyson continues over the phone. Thirteen people were still killed Friday, May 28, in Cali, including eight by firearms, according to city authorities.

The international community is concerned about the evolution of the Colombian situation and the virulence of the repression. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for an investigation on Sunday “Fast, efficient and impartial” on deadly violence. “It is essential to investigate those responsible for the injuries inflicted and the deaths, including if they are public officials”, says the UN press release. According to his services, 98 people were injured Friday in Cali, including 54 by bullets. Like M^me Bachelet, the 17 European Union ambassadors stationed in Bogota called on the parties to dialogue. “The country demands reconciliation and an end to violence”, diplomats tweeted on Sunday.

The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) says it has received “Credible information” on the deaths of 63 people since the start of anti-government protests across the country.

“Vandals” and “terrorists”

The mobilization touches all cities and all young people, from students of upscale universities to desperate adolescents from the poorest neighborhoods. Colombian flag on the shoulders, all demand an end to police violence. Everyone dreams of a more just country. Some have rabies, and violent incidents are almost daily.

Despite calls for dialogue from human rights organizations and the international community, Ivan Duque (right) maintains a hard line. His government has treated the protesters in turn “Vandals” and of “Terrorists”. He accused them of being infiltrated by guerrillas and drug traffickers, financed by Russian presidents Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro, or even manipulated by Gustavo Petro – the leader of the Colombian left.

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro promised in a video published Sunday, May 30 to the indigenous Yanomani the end of mining in their territories, where they do not want it.

“If you don’t want mines, there won’t be mines”Mr. Bolsonaro said in this video recorded last Thursday during a meeting with representatives of Yanomani communities, the first having taken place in indigenous territory.

Since 2020, the indigenous Yanomani have alerted the authorities to the situation of extreme tension reigning in their territories, which constitute the largest indigenous reserve in the country with 96,000 km² and some 27,000 inhabitants.

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Up 30% last year

Their representatives and environmental organizations denounce the illegal exploitation of land, in part favored by the discourse favorable to the economic exploitation of the indigenous territories of the Brazilian president, so far.

During Thursday’s meeting, Bolsonaro pledged that the military would intervene to enforce their rights, but never made any reference to illegal mines. These, the main cause of environmental destruction in the Amazon rainforest, increased by 30% last year, devastating the equivalent of 500 football fields, according to a report by a Yanomani association.

For several weeks, the natives of the Yanomani and Mundurucu (northern) territories have suffered attacks from illegal minors, which prompted a judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil to order the government to take the “Necessary measures” To protect them.

Read also In the heart of Brazil’s wild gold mines

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In matters of intelligence, it is customary to say that friendships do not exist. France and some of its closest allies have experienced it: several parliamentarians and senior officials from Germany, France, Norway and Sweden have been spied on by the National Security Agency (NSA), the American intelligence agency responsible for wiretapping. , by hijacking Danish electronic surveillance systems.

This is what advances, Sunday, May 30, an investigation of the Danish public television (DR), to which The world, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, German channels NDR and WDR, as well as Swedish (SVT) and Norwegian (NRK) public television stations had access. DR echoes an internal Danish intelligence report showing that the NSA spied on prominent European politicians in 2012 and 2014, using Danish telecommunications submarine cable eavesdropping systems . Access that the American agency had under agreements with Denmark.

Among the targets are German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as two unsuccessful candidates for chancellery in 2009 and 2013 respectively: Frank-Walter Steinmeier, leader of the social democratic opposition in the Bundestag then foreign minister and current president of the Republic, and Peer Steinbrück, one of the main figures of the SPD, the Social Democratic Party.

Denmark accomplice

DR spoke to multiple sources who had access to this confidential and highly technical report completed in May 2015 by the Danish military intelligence service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, FE). This work began in 2013: at the time, the FE wanted, in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations on the practices of the NSA, to shed light on the use made by the powerful American intelligence agency of its interception facilities in Denmark.

Read the archive (2020): NSA phone surveillance program ruled illegal on appeal

Four specialized agents therefore met in the greatest secrecy to look into the “selectors”, “keywords” (in reality telephone numbers or e-mail addresses, sometimes other more technical elements) chosen. in 2012 and 2014 by the NSA, which the interception system searched for and extracted from the intercepted data stream in Denmark.

The conclusions of this secret report, entitled “Dunhammer” and about fifteen pages long, are unequivocal: the NSA took advantage of its partnership with Denmark to spy on allied countries, making Copenhagen an accomplice, at least out of naivety, of the tendencies of surveillance of his partner.

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The Colombian army, obeying the order of President Ivan Duque, began on Saturday (May 29) to deploy a thousand troops in the city of Cali, where at least thirteen people were killed the day before. The country’s third-largest city, with a population of 2.2 million, is the epicenter of anti-government protests.

Eight of the victims were shot dead, police said. An investigator from the Cali prosecutor’s office fired at the crowd, killing two civilians, before being lynched by protesters, according to the prosecution.

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The violence comes exactly one month after the April 28 uprising against a quickly abandoned tax reform project led by right-wing President Ivan Duque, which aimed to increase VAT and broaden the income tax base.

In a month of popular uprising, at least 59 dead, including two police officers, have been recorded in the country, according to an official count. Some 2,300 people were injured and 123 are missing. Human Rights Watch reports up to 63 deaths.

“The situation in Cali is very serious”, tweeted José Miguel Vivanco, Director for the Americas of HRW, who urged President Duque to take “Urgent de-escalation measures, including a specific order to ban the use of firearms by state agents. Colombia cannot deplore more deaths ”.

Peaceful protests by day, rebels by night

For a month, the scenario has almost always been the same: by day, the demonstrations are peaceful and creative, at night the rebellion turns into riots where fireworks and Molotov cocktails mix with live ammunition.

This unprecedented revolt shakes the big cities, where barricades are erected and where road blockages cause shortages and exasperate part of the population. The government, despite mediators responsible for negotiating with the National Strike Committee, initiator of the movement, is unable to deactivate a crisis which, for the moment, does not threaten to overthrow it.

This sudden crisis has above all revealed, according to analysts, the dull anger of a politicized youth, impoverished by the pandemic, who no longer wants to be silent.

Read also In Colombia, new protests against police repression turn into chaos

Backfire

For half a century, the conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has obscured a reality that has become too glaring: according to the World Bank, Colombia ranks among the most unequal countries in terms of income and has the most informal job in Latin America. The state concentrated in its fight against the guerrillas – that against the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the dissidents of the FARC still continues – and has completely abandoned social demand.

In 2019, a year after the election of Mr. Duque, students took to the streets to demand better free public education, jobs, a more united state and society. The pandemic put an end to the mobilization in 2020 without the 42-year-old head of state making big concessions. The backlash is all the stronger, with poverty that has accelerated to 42.5% of the 50 million inhabitants, the Covid-19 epidemic plunging the most vulnerable into poverty.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also Colombia: “When the government is worse than the virus, the people are in the streets”

US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken expressed on Friday “His concern and condolences for the loss of human life” occurred in Colombia and “Reiterated the indisputable right of citizens to demonstrate peacefully”, following a meeting with his Colombian counterpart, Marta Lucia Ramirez, who is visiting Washington this week.

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Will fall, will not fall? Saturday, May 29, in Rio, the meeting place given for the demonstration in opposition to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro does not seem to have been chosen at random. The gathering started in the shadow of the famous Balança Mas Não Cai building (“Pitching but not falling”): a gigantic concrete building, inaugurated in 1948, reputed to be unstable but which, in seven long decades, has not collapsed.

For the Brazilian left, the objective was indeed to mobilize en masse in order to finally bring down the irremovable head of state of the extreme right, whose popularity is in sharp decline, and of which a majority of Brazilians (57% , according to the PodeData institute) is now calling for dismissal. The bet is won: rallies took place in at least 200 cities, bringing together, depending on the locality, up to tens of thousands of demonstrators.

Also listen Brazil: the political duel behind the health crisis

Slogan? ” Fora Bolsonaro! “ (“Bolsonaro out!”). In Rio, at the call of the main left parties, the procession crossed the wide arteries and small alleys of the city center under the sun. For the occasion, we took out the red (left-wing unions), green (environmentalists), purple (feminists) or even black flags (in tribute to the 460,000 victims of Covid-19). At the call of the organizers, almost all the demonstrators came masked. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), some 10,000 people took part in the demonstration in the Brazilian capital.

On Vargas Avenue, Rodrigo paraded to the side, avoiding mixing with the bulk of the crowd. ” I was a little apprehensive about coming in the midst of a pandemic ”, recognizes this 34-year-old teacher, who has not given up coming, while 2,500 Brazilians still die every day as a result of Covid-19. “ We cannot stay at home with what is happening! The Bolsonaro government is more dangerous than the virus ”, he adds.

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Lula, the champion of the demonstrators

Along the parade, the atmosphere is heavy. Many families of victims are there. ” I refuse to become a statistic », We read on a poster. Is it the fear? The tiredness ? Economic crisis ? In Rio as elsewhere, the gatherings attracted a lot of people without turning into a tidal wave. Partly the fault of left-wing organizations, divided on the merits of a demonstration in the midst of an epidemic. Neither the popular union of the Single Central of Workers (CUT) nor the Landless Movement (MST) have officially called on their members to take to the streets.

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An artist is suing former Quebec humor mogul Gilbert Rozon, whom she accuses of having raped her in 1988, the third such complaint in just over a month against the founder of the Just for Laughs festival. announced, Friday, May 28, the lawyers of this woman.

Danie Frenette, who was making a career in theater and circus at the time, claimed 2.2 million Canadian dollars (1.4 million euros) from the ex-juror of the program “La France a un incredible talent ”, according to the request filed at the Montreal courthouse. M^me Frenette accuses Gilbert Rozon of having raped her during a party he had organized in the garden of his residence in Montreal to celebrate the end of the Just for Laughs festival in July 1988, according to the request consulted by Agence France -Press (AFP).

“Shocked, confused and paralyzed by shame”, the woman would not have resisted her alleged attacker and would have left the scene immediately after the incident. She assures that Gilbert Rozon sexually assaulted her again in the fall of 1988. “The rape, assaults and the hold the defendant had over her had serious repercussions on her life, which continue to this day.”, support the lawyers of M^me Frenette, now 66 years old.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also “Feminism of lynching” or “brilliant continuum”: the second wave of #metoo in Quebec

Two other complaints

Mr. Rozon, 66, was acquitted in December in another rape and indecent assault case following a criminal trial. But two other Quebeckers, Lyne Charlebois and Patricia Tulasne, recently sued Mr. Rozon in civil proceedings for rape, also claiming to have been raped in the 1980s and 1990s. “I gave the mandate to my lawyers to take the measures they deem appropriate in order to ensure my defense”, had declared Gilbert Rozon after the complaint of Mr.^me Charlebois.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also At his rape trial, former Quebec producer Gilbert Rozon accuses the complainant of having abused him

Lyne Charlebois, Patricia Tulasne and Danie Frenette participated in the creation of Les Courageuses, a collective of twenty women presumed victims of the former producer between 1982 and 2016. This group had taken a collective action against Gilbert Rozon, rejected by Canadian justice.

Targeted by accusations of sexual assault in October 2017, in the midst of the #metoo movement, Gilbert Rozon has since left his post at the head of the Just for Laughs group. The impact of these cases, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal in the United States, had led the French television channels M6 and C8 to deprogram programs with which Gilbert Rozon was associated.

Article reserved for our subscribers Read also “Rare are the comedians to dare the transgression”: in Montreal, the crisis of laughter

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Emilce Peralta doesn’t really know: should she slip 500 pesos (4.30 euros at the official rate) into her pocket? A bit more ? Or will the double still not be enough for a back-up trip to the neighborhood mini-market? “We don’t know anymore. Prices are going up all the time. It is painful “, let go of this 49-year-old public sector cleaner and mother of three teenagers in La Plata (60 kilometers south of Buenos Aires).

Faced with the crazy price race (+ 46.3% in April 2021 over one year), she and her husband, Jorge Lorenzo, 50 years old, gendarme, have been doing like the majority of Argentines for years: they tinker and suffer. “We hardly buy yogurt or clothes anymore, it’s too expensive now”, remarks Mr. Lorenzo, while the revaluation of wages does not keep pace with inflation.

During the austral summer, the family went on vacation for a week. “Only because we were given accommodation”, specifies the father, who, coming from a working-class background, like his wife, never ceases to emphasize their luck: they both have a job (11% of the population is unemployed), their activity is declared (one third of the labor market is informal), and they have enough to eat (42% of Argentines live in poverty).

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Global phenomenon, driven by the recovery, inflation should mark the year 2021. If this generalized increase inflates Argentinian prices a little more, “Here, it has nothing to do”, sighs Marina Dal Poggetto, economist and director of the consulting firm EcoGo. “We record in a month what the world will perhaps experience in an entire year, itself exceptional”, she warns. Argentina and inflation continue an old story: on average, the annual price increase stands at 105%, according to a calculation by the Chamber of Commerce and Services carried out in 2018, covering … a century, a figure inflated by fever peaks, as in 1989 (+ 3,079%).

Deep mistrust of the national currency

“For more than ten years, Argentina has had an inflation that exceeds 20%, according to our records”, notes Matias Rajnerman, economist and director of the consulting firm Ecolatina. The pace has accelerated in recent years: + 47.6% in 2018, + 53.8% in 2019, during the second part of the mandate of the right-wing government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019). The shutdown of the economy, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, has reduced inflation, which rose to 36% in 2020. However, prices have been skyrocketing in recent months and are threatening Alberto Fernandez’s government (center left) is already aiming to maintain inflation at 29% for 2021.

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When the hospital announced the result of her son’s test in early June 2020, Jessika Ricarte initially did not believe it. ” Lucas was only one year and five months old. I didn’t think you could catch the Covid so young. And even less that a baby could have a serious form ”remembers this 31-year-old teacher, living in the town of Tamboril, located in the interior of the Nordeste.

Loss of appetite, vomiting, fever, shortness of breath, extreme fatigue … For weeks, Lucas had been showing worrying symptoms. For the first time, in mid-May, Jessika took her to the hospital… but was sent home with simple antibiotics. ” The doctor said to me: “My little one, don’t worry. No need to take a Covid test. It’s just a little sore throat ””, she says by phone, her voice blank.

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In the days that follow, Lucas’s condition deteriorates further. Finally tested positive, he must be hospitalized and then intubated. For thirty-three days, the child oscillates between life and death, between cardiac arrest and unexpected resuscitation. ” I really thought he was going to be okay. I dreamed of him, of his return ”, says Jessika. At the end of his rope, Lucas dies on the morning of July 8. He was not 2 years old.

” No one should go through this. I feel so guilty… If we had tested him earlier, we could have saved him ”, Jessika sobs. Its drama is far from isolated: since the start of the pandemic, more than 2,800 children under the age of 10 have died as a result of Covid-19 in Brazil, according to figures disclosed by Vital Strategies, an NGO focused on public health issues. Of these, more than half were less than one year old.

“The under-notification is immense”

These frightening figures are without comparison with other countries in the world where data on the subject is available (in France, for example, only 13 children under 19 have died from Covid-19). Above all, they are two to three higher than those made public by the Ministry of Health. And for good reason: Vital Strategies data includes children who died of acute respiratory distress from unknown causes, most often the result of an undiagnosed Covid-19. ” But the real numbers are arguably even more important. The under-notification is immense ”, explains Fatima Marinho, the epidemiologist who coordinated the study.

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FactualPrioritizing the fight against terrorism to the reconstruction of the country, the United States has increased its strategy changes since 2001. They will leave Afghan soil at the beginning of July without having won the longest war in their history, leaving the Taliban in a position of strength.

On top of a hill, Kabul’s Bala Hissar, a historic fortress of Afghan power, overlooks the capital, which seems to extend to the mountains. Its ruins sum up the fate of a country unlike any other, jealous of its independence, and toy, at all times, of external powers. In this month of May, the restoration works of the citadel and the archaeological mission in progress unearth, every day, vestiges of the time of the Persian, Mughal or British invaders. There are also graffiti, left by Soviet soldiers between 1979 and 1989, and the carcasses of tanks dating from a civil war, between 1992 and 1996, which saw the Taliban take power in Kabul.

Below, a vast militarized enclosure guarded by the Afghan army testifies to an American presence which is coming to an end, twenty years after the fall of a Taliban regime guilty of having hosted Al-Qaida. President Joe Biden has pledged a full troop withdrawal no later than September 11. In fact, at the beginning of July, everything will be over. The Taliban in search of revenge will have a clear field, even if they swear to want to continue the inter-Afghan peace process opened on September 12, 2020, in Doha. In the meantime, they are regaining, district by district, by dint of deadly fighting against the regular army, a country in which they already control more than a third of the territory.

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The American departure opens a new chapter in the history of Afghanistan, filled with uncertainty and an immense sense of waste. In Kabul, in his office as Chief of the Afghan Executive, a position he has been holding since 2020 with that of President of the High Council for National Reconciliation in charge of peace talks with the Taliban, Abdullah Abdullah regrets these “Missed opportunities to achieve peace”. For the past twenty years, he has spent them at the forefront of power. He was already foreign minister in the interim government, appointed following the Bonn agreements in December 2001, which were supposed to define the country’s new political foundations.

People full of hope

“After the fall of the Taliban regime, the population was sincerely filled with hope and open to the changes brought about by the American intervention”, he said to World. Even if, in 2002, Mullah Omar, head of the Taliban, still declared, in an interview with the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, than ” the battle [venait] barely started, his flame [avait] been revived and it will reduce the White House to ashes ”, predicting “Fire, hell and utter defeat for the United States”. But the rules of the Afghan tribal system have turned against the insurgents. The Pashtun tribes, from which they were all from at that time, withdrew their allegiance because they were no longer able to guarantee them physical or economic security. While the Taliban had seized power amid ethnic conflicts, the American intervention had the effect of calming relations between Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara and Uzbeks. In addition, Hamid Karzai, president of the provisional administration, appointed in Bonn, then promises to stand up to the dreaded warlords, the non-Pashtun war “lords” who fought the Taliban regime alongside the Americans.

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After browsing Amazon, we find a CD player to buy, but the delivery time is four days. Too long, in the connected world. So let’s go to Best Buy, on the 86^e Street in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side, for shopping. The inexpensive distribution chain store looks like a poorly stocked warehouse, many traders are there to sell next to nothing. An unfortunate CD player is on the shelves, which does not correspond to our wishes. Back to Amazon.

After a year of the Covid-19 pandemic, New York is coming back to life, but in a different way. Confusedly, everyone notices that things have changed. Life in this residential neighborhood is more welcoming, with covered terraces having conquered a lane on the huge avenues, which gives Manhattan a European air. The quality of the menus is improving.

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The inhabitants have become accustomed to going out in their neighborhood on foot instead of going down into the city, beyond the still empty business districts. But, behind this renewed gastronomic life, the commercial desert looms, in particular around the metro stations, deprived of travelers for more than a year. The Barnes & Noble bookstore has definitely closed its doors. “Too big and too expensive”, had let the owner know. Poorly arranged, above all, this bookstore where the customer wandered without finding anything to arouse his curiosity. Again, back to Amazon, which delivers the next day.

The list of closed businesses is endless

We could add the cinema, which had closed its doors before the pandemic and will not reopen either: the premises are under construction. But also clothing stores, less and less numerous. The H&M chain has adapted its schedules for the pandemic, but reassures passers-by with a beautiful sign in front of their door: “Remember: H&M. com is open twenty–four hours a day–four. “

The stroll around the 86^e Rue is just a succession of disappointments: trying to close a telephone line at T-Mobile, on the way to the store where we had taken out the subscription. The store has moved across the street to more spacious premises. We are looking forward to the personalized service that promises to be, when the salesperson very kindly explains that the requested service is provided … only by telephone.

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During the pandemic, New York’s digital seesaw accelerated, including in surviving stores. At the Fairway supermarket, customers are invited to scan their products as they shop with a smartphone application and to checkout themselves. Otherwise, it’s an interminable wait in the line of the old traditional cash registers. The same goes for the CVS pharmacist.

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