PORT-AU-PRINCE // Violent protests erupted in Haiti, leaving two dead in clashes with UN peacekeepers, amid rising public anger over a cholera epidemic that has claimed nearly 1,000 lives, officials said.
The UN Mission in Haiti issued a statement late Monday linking the protests to November 28 presidential elections, and appealed to Haitians not to allow themselves to be manipulated by "the enemies of stability and democracy."
"The way the events unfolded leads to the belief that these incidents were politically motivated, aimed at creating a climate of insecurity ahead of the elections," it said.
But angry crowds blamed the United Nations for the spiralling cholera epidemic and attacked a police station and UN bases in Cap-Haitien, the country's second largest city, and the town of Hinche in central Haiti.
In Cap-Haitien, doctors and police said around a dozen people were being treated for bullet wounds, with some in serious condition.
A 20-year-old man was killed outside a UN base in Cap-Haitien's Quartier-Morin during clashes between protesters and peacekeepers who fired tear gas to try to disperse the crowd.
"There was a demonstrator who had a weapon and fired at a soldier, and the soldier returned fire in legitimate self-defense," said Vicenzo Pugliese, a spokesman for the UN mission known by its initials MINUSTAH. "The soldier was not injured."
A local official, Bimps Noel, said the peacekeepers first fired to disperse the crowds, "and then later, I have the impression they fired on a man."
He said the young man was shot in the back, noting that the "UN tanks were hit by stones."
Another young Haitian was killed by gunfire on a street in Cap-Haitien during the clashes, a police source said.
Doctor Yves Jasmin, the top local health official, told AFP around 10 people had been taken to the Justinien hospital, but described the injuries as light. A police source put the number at 14, including two seriously wounded.
"The situation is very difficult, and there is a lot of violence in the city. I am blocked in the city, and I can't get to the hospital," Jasmin said.
Demonstrators set a police station and vehicles inside on fire as they went on the rampage, accusing the government of "leaving the population to die," witnesses told local radio.
The situation remained tense in Cap-Haitien into the early hours Tuesday.
"Sporadic gunfire was heard in the city, according to witnesses, while groups of looters began sacking a food warehouse belonging to an international organization," a police source told AFP.
The French embassy in Port-au-Prince urged French nationals in Cap-Haitien to exercise caution and avoid the violence.
The UN mission, meanwhile, reaffirmed "its firm commitment to support the National Police of Haiti in the maintenance of order and security in the country to assure the continuation of the electoral process and Haiti's reconstruction."
A Nepalese contingent that arrived in the country shortly before the cholera epidemic broke out in mid-October is blamed by many as the source of the outbreak.
The United Nations is probing claims the outbreak emanated from septic tanks at the camp near the central town of Mirebalais, where the Nepalese are based, but the World Health Organization says finding the source is not the first priority.
Protesters reportedly threw stones at the UN peacekeeping unit in the central town of Hinche, less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Mirebalais, during a protest involving some 400 people.
The protests showed the cholera was "an issue obviously of national security," said Nigel Fisher, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti.
Less than a month after Haiti's first cholera outbreak in half a century, the number of confirmed number of fatalities stood at 917 and was rising by more than 50 a day. There have been almost 15,000 infections.
Most deaths have been in central and northern Haiti, with the disease not yet widespread in the capital Port-au-Prince, which was badly damaged in a January quake that killed 250,000 people and left over a million homeless.
Officials fear the cholera epidemic could spread exponentially if it infiltrates squalid relocation camps around the capital where hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors live in cramped and unsanitary conditions.
Some 200 cholera deaths have been reported in the north and 100 in Cap-Haitien, health officials said. Schools in Cap-Haitien are closed as parents are refusing to send children to class, fearing they may get sick.
A top UN official said there are now cholera cases in every one of Haiti's 10 departments and warned that aid agencies were expecting a significant increase in the number of infections.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo
Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
Power: 242bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Price: Dh136,814
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
A Cat, A Man, and Two Women
Junichiro Tamizaki
Translated by Paul McCarthy
Daunt Books
Army of the Dead
Director: Zack Snyder
Stars: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera
Three stars
Coffee: black death or elixir of life?
It is among the greatest health debates of our time; splashed across newspapers with contradicting headlines - is coffee good for you or not?
Depending on what you read, it is either a cancer-causing, sleep-depriving, stomach ulcer-inducing black death or the secret to long life, cutting the chance of stroke, diabetes and cancer.
The latest research - a study of 8,412 people across the UK who each underwent an MRI heart scan - is intended to put to bed (caffeine allowing) conflicting reports of the pros and cons of consumption.
The study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, contradicted previous findings that it stiffens arteries, putting pressure on the heart and increasing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke, leading to warnings to cut down.
Numerous studies have recognised the benefits of coffee in cutting oral and esophageal cancer, the risk of a stroke and cirrhosis of the liver.
The benefits are often linked to biologically active compounds including caffeine, flavonoids, lignans, and other polyphenols, which benefit the body. These and othetr coffee compounds regulate genes involved in DNA repair, have anti-inflammatory properties and are associated with lower risk of insulin resistance, which is linked to type-2 diabetes.
But as doctors warn, too much of anything is inadvisable. The British Heart Foundation found the heaviest coffee drinkers in the study were most likely to be men who smoked and drank alcohol regularly.
Excessive amounts of coffee also unsettle the stomach causing or contributing to stomach ulcers. It also stains the teeth over time, hampers absorption of minerals and vitamins like zinc and iron.
It also raises blood pressure, which is largely problematic for people with existing conditions.
So the heaviest drinkers of the black stuff - some in the study had up to 25 cups per day - may want to rein it in.
Rory Reynolds
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5