Wildfires, record temps harry West – National & International News- MON 12Jul2021

Blazes, world record temps in West. Search for graves at Indian schools. Cuba protests. Haiti assassination story gets weirder. 

NATIONAL NEWS

Wildfires, record temperatures harry West

Firefighters are battling to bring California’s biggest wildfire of the year under control. The fire at Beckwourth Complex near the Nevada border has scorched about 134 square miles so far.

Another even larger fire in Oregon, the Bootleg Fire, has spread over 224 square miles and has disrupted transmission lines providing power to neighboring California. This and soaring local temperatures has local authorities asking Californians to voluntarily “conserve as much electricity as possible” to prevent potential outages.

These and other fires in the region have sprung up in the second record-breaking heatwave to hit the area in just a few weeks. A temperature of 130 degrees recorded in Death Valley on Sunday is tied for the world’s highest ever recorded temperature.

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Nationwide search for graves at Indian boarding schools

Following discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves surrounding Indian boarding schools in Canada, the Department of the Interior is launching its own investigation in the US. The graves in Canada were discovered using non-excavation investigative techniques like ground penetrating radar (GPR). Similar surveys will take place at the sites of hundreds of similar schools that operated across the US for more than a century.

From the mid-1800s until well into the 20th century, local government and church authorities removed hundreds of thousands of Native American children from their homes and reservations. From there, the children were taken to residential schools. Here they were forbidden any contact with their families, and were punished for even speaking in their native tongues. The children, many of whom had already been baptized, were further indoctrinated into Christianity and encouraged to abandon their native beliefs.

Many of these children never returned home, either going missing or ending up in white foster homes.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Cuba sees first mass protests in decades

Thousands in Havana and across Cuba have taken to the streets to protest economic conditions in the country. Protests of this scale and scope have not taken place on the island for more than three decades.

Like most developing countries, Cuba has suffered tremendous setbacks during the pandemic. Recent foot shortages, skyrocketing prices and the collapse of the social safety net have brought many Cubans to the brink.

International news reports have also characterized the protest as a call for regime change. It’s difficult to gauge the accuracy of this assessment. Anecdotally, some protesters have voiced a desire to end communist rule. It’s fair to say the island’s government has been dragging its feet on promised economic reforms since the end of Castro rule. However, most of the protesters have emphasized the need for the basics of life, including food, housing, and now, vaccines.

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Haiti assassination story just gets weirder

Since the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, numerous reports with varying degrees of credibility have made the rounds in the press. It’s not merely that the story is changing from day to day; it seems the story is entirely reinventing itself with each new report.

What we know so far is that Haitian authorities have arrested several mercenaries, hailing mostly from Colombia and the US. Video from the assault shows that the attackers posed as US Drug Enforcement agents during the raid.

The aims and motivations behind the attack are still up for debate. Some of the 17 attackers in custody have claimed the plan was not to assassination Moise, but merely to kidnap him. That at least seems credible, since 26 (at last count) attackers seems like a lot for an assassination.

Venezuelan ties?

Some of the attackers have also claimed connections to a Venezuelan expat, currently living in Miami. Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera runs a private security firm called CTU Security. Intriago is apparently a supporter of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Readers may recall a shambolic attempt an invasion of Venezuela last year involving a US security firm which claimed ties to Guaido. Venezuelan authorities quickly thwarted the attack, having received a tip-off from Colombia. Their plan was apparently to force the resignation of Venezuela’s democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro.

Whether Intriago’s political leanings played any role in this operation (if he indeed had a role) is unclear.

Haitian-American doctor arrested

Haitian authorities have also arrested Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 63, a Haitian national who worked as a doctor in Florida. Haiti’s police chief Leon Charles says that Sanon had ambitions of becoming Haiti’s president himself. Charles says Sanon contracted with CTU, initially for personal protection. But at some point, Charles says, “the mission changed”.

In Sanon’s home, police allegedly found a DEA cap and bullets. But Haitian authorities believe that Sanon himself was only a middle man between the attackers and an as yet unknown mastermind.