World

Quito is a city beleaguered — its shops shuttered and streets empty of all but thousands of Indigenous protesters clamoring for a better life, and the police and soldiers keeping them in check.

Some 10,000 demonstrators have gathered in the Ecuadoran capital from all over the country to protest high fuel prices and rising living costs.

And they have vowed to stay until the government meets their demands, or falls.

“It could be a month, it could be two… The war will come but here we will fight,” said Maria Vega, 47, who ekes out a living doing odd jobs — one of about a third of Ecuadorans living in poverty.

Nearly a third do not have full-time work.

Demanding jobs, fuel price cuts, better healthcare and education, they arrived in Quito on foot or on the backs of trucks, many from hundreds of kilometers away.

At night, after long hours on the streets, they recharge, housed austerely at two university campuses and relying in large part on food handouts from church and other groups.

– Shields, sticks and flags –

In the mornings, they set out in groups bearing sticks, makeshift shields fashioned from traffic signs or rubbish bins, and the wiphala — the multicolored flag of the native peoples of the Andes.

Traditional red ponchos stand out among the aggrieved crowds, who set up road barricades with burning tires and tree branches, building bonfires in broad daylight.

Access to the presidency is blocked by metal fences, razor wire and stern lines of security personnel.

“They have weapons. How can one compare a weapon to a stick or a stone? We are not on an equal footing,” protester Luzmila Zamora, 51, complained of the show of force.

President Guillermo Lasso, a former banker who took office a year ago, sees in the revolt an attempt to overthrow him.

Ecuador has a reputation for ungovernability following the departure of three presidents between 1997 and 2005 under pressure from Indigenous people — who make up more than a million of Ecuador’s 17.7 million people.

In 2019, protests led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) — which also called the latest demonstrations — forced the government to abandon plans to eliminate fuel subsidies.

They seem as determined this time around: standing firm in spite of a state of emergency in six of Ecuador’s 24 states, a night-time curfew in Quito, a massive military deployment and insults hurled at them from residents whose lives and livelihoods have been thrown into turmoil.

“We want a government that works for the people, for all of Ecuador, not only for the upper class,” insisted protester Zamora.

Another, 40-year-old pastor Marco Vinicio Morales, said he could not understand how in a country with vast oil, gold and silver resources, people were falling ever further behind.

“If there is no answer (to the protesters’ demands), Lasso will have dug his own grave,” he said.

– Diners flee teargas –

Business owners, shopkeepers and workers in the capital, just starting to recover from closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, are not pleased.

Efren Carrion, a 42-year-old chef, said his restaurant normally sells about 120 meals on a week day. “These days, it has been 10 or 25 maximum,” he said.

And due to the ubiquitous teargas in the air, “clients often leave running, without paying.”

For Carrion, workers like him should not have to pay the price for the protest.

“The best revolution is to work and reach an agreement, to negotiate,” he said.

So far, no talks have been scheduled as both side dig in their heels.

Two women and three children died in a Buenos Aires apartment building fire Thursday that saw 35 others rushed to several hospitals, emergency services said. 

The fire broke out at around 6:00 am on the seventh floor of a building in the central Recoleta neighborhood, and spread rapidly to the eighth floor, fire officer Pablo Giardina said.

Two women and three children who were evacuated alive died on their way to hospital of smoke inhalation and burns, added SAME emergency services head Alberto Crescenti.

Thirty-five others were receiving treatment for various injuries. One, a 52-year-old man, was in serious condition.

The cause of the fire in the 14-story building is not yet known. 

Journalists killed or wounded during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were honoured Thursday in an exhibition in Kyiv, months into Moscow’s war.

“The war continues, the war is not over. And this is a war in which our citizens are dying, in which Ukrainian and foreign journalists are dying,” said Tetyana Teren, executive director of PEN Ukraine, one of the organisers of the exhibition.

“That is why we ask foreign media to tell the truth about this war and continue to tell the world about Russia’s crimes in our country,” she told AFP.

Portraits of reporters and media workers who have become victims of the conflict stare down at passers-by from large black and white boards in the capital’s centre.

The exhibition is entitled “The War Is Not Over Yet” and organised by Kyiv city authorities with human rights and press advocacy groups.

It tells the stories of reporters who have been killed, wounded, or persecuted after Russia invaded its pro-EU neighbour on February 24.

“The Russian occupiers killed the American journalist, director and producer Brent Renaud,” one of the large panels installed in a park central Kyiv reads. 

Renaud, who died on March 13, was the first foreign journalist to be killed by Russian forces after the invasion on February 24, exhibition organisers said. 

Other journalists who have lost their lives during the war, include Franco-Irish Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski who died on March 14 alongside Ukrainian producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova.

Their vehicle was struck by incoming fire, injuring correspondent Benjamin Hall, in Horenka outside the Ukrainian capital.

Frenchman Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff, died on May 30 accompanying civilians on board an evacuation bus in the east of Ukraine.  

“Now that four months have passed since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, it is more important than ever to intensify the world’s focus on Ukraine,” the organisers said in a statement.

“This exhibition is an expression of solidarity with Ukrainian media professionals who fight for the truth, risking their own lives,” they added.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday that Russian soldiers killed Ukrainian photojournalist Maks Levin in March, possibly after having tortured him.

The international advocacy group says that eight reporters have been killed and 16 more injured since the start of Russia’s invasion.

The US Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Americans have a fundamental right to carry a handgun in public, a landmark decision with far-reaching implications for states and cities across the country struggling with a surge in gun violence.

The 6-3 decision strikes down a more than century-old New York law that required a person to prove they had a legitimate self-defense need, or “proper cause,” to receive a permit to carry a handgun outside the home.

Several other states, including California, have similar laws — and the court’s ruling will curb their ability to restrict people from carrying guns in public.

Democratic President Joe Biden denounced the decision, saying it “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”

“We must do more as a society -— not less -— to protect our fellow Americans,” Biden said. “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety.”

Despite a growing call for limits on firearms after two horrific mass shootings in May, the court sided with advocates who said the US Constitution guarantees the right to own and carry guns.

The ruling is the first by the court in a major Second Amendment case in over a decade, when it ruled in 2008 that Americans have a right to keep a gun at home for self-defense.

It was a stunning victory for the National Rifle Association lobby group, which brought the case along with two New York men who had been denied gun permits.

“Today’s ruling is a watershed win for good men and women all across America and is the result of a decades-long fight the NRA has led,” NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said in a statement.

“The right to self-defense and to defend your family and loved ones should not end at your home.”

– ‘Dark day’ –

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called it a “dark day,” while California’s leader Gavin Newsom termed the decision “shameful.”

“It is outrageous that at a moment of national reckoning on gun violence, the Supreme Court has recklessly struck down a New York law that limits those who can carry concealed weapons,” Hochul said.

“This is a dangerous decision from a court hell bent on pushing a radical ideological agenda and infringing on the rights of states to protect our citizens from being gunned down in our streets, schools, and churches,” Newsom tweeted.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion and was joined by the other five conservatives on the nine-member court, three of whom were nominated by former Republican president Donald Trump.

Thomas said the New York law prevents “law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”

“We conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution,” Thomas said.

The ruling comes as the US Senate is considering a rare bipartisan bill that includes modest gun control measures.

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said the ruling “makes it all the more important for Congress to take actionable steps to protect our kids and communities from this nation’s gun violence epidemic.

“In a nation of almost 400 million firearms, this Supreme Court decision is an invitation for more gun deaths and chaos in America’s neighborhoods,” he said.

On May 14, an 18-year-old used an AR-15-type assault rifle to kill 10 African Americans at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

Less than two weeks later 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, by another teen with the same type of high-powered, semi-automatic rifle.

In the decision, Justice Samuel Alito dismissed arguments that guns outside of homes lead to great violence, including when it comes to mass shootings.

“Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years?,” he wrote.

– Liberals dissent –

The New York law said that to be given a permit to carry a firearm outside the home, a gun owner must clearly demonstrate that it is explicitly needed for self-defense.

Gun-rights advocates said that violated the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which says “the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The three liberal justices on the Supreme Court dissented from the ruling.

“Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence,” Justice Stephen Breyer said.

“The Court today severely burdens states’ efforts to do so.”

More than half of US states already allow permitless carry of firearms, most of them only doing so in the past decade.

The New York state law dated to 1913 and had stood based on the understanding that individual states had the right to regulate gun usage and ownership.

Over the past two decades more than 200 million guns have hit the US market, led by assault rifles and personal handguns, feeding a surge in murders, mass shootings and suicides.

Lebanon’s lawmakers designated incumbent Prime Minister Najib Mikati to form a new government Thursday, more than a month after parliamentary elections that yielded no clear majority.

The 66-year-old billionaire, who had been widely expected to keep his job, secured 54 votes during parliamentary consultations, giving him a clear edge over other potential nominees.

President Michel Aoun subsequently asked him to form a new government, a task analysts fear could take weeks, if not months, despite the economic emergency facing the country.

Lebanon defaulted on its debt in 2020, the local currency has lost around 90 percent of its value on the black market, and the UN now considers four in five Lebanese to be poor.

By convention, Lebanon’s prime ministerial position is reserved for a Sunni Muslim, the presidency goes to a Maronite Christian and the post of speaker to a Shiite Muslim.

His nearest rival for the post of prime minister-designate was former ambassador to the United Nations Nawaf Salam, who only received 25 votes.

Most of the deputies in Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament chose not to designate any candidate.

The powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, whose political alliance lost the clear majority it had in the previous parliament, threw its weight behind Mikati.

The Tripoli native, who is the richest man in bankrupt Lebanon, has already headed three governments since 2005.

Analysts expect him to struggle to reach a deal for a fourth administration. The current cabinet was formed in September last year after a 13-month wait.

The International Monetary Fund announced in April that a conditional agreement had been reached to provide Lebanon with $3 billion in aid and help its economy recover.

The institution warned, however, that its approval hinged on the timely implementation of reforms by Lebanon, whose main power brokers are widely considered as corrupt.

In a statement after his designation on Thursday, Mikati called for “cooperation with parliament to approve the reforms.”

“Without an IMF deal, there can be no rescue plan,” he said in the statement issued by his office.