Category World News

Haiti names new head of transitional council ahead of scheduled elections

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As the nation continues to struggle with rampant gang violence, corruption, and economic insecurity, Haiti has appointed businessman Laurent Saint-Cyr as head of its transitional presidential council.

The Villa d’Accueil, a colonial-style mansion in a Port-au-Prince suburb, hosted Saint-Cyr’s inauguration ceremony on Thursday.

At the ceremony, Saint-Cyr remarked, “We must restore state authority.” The insecurity we face is undoubtedly related to it, but it also reflects our lack of courage, vision, and irresponsibility.

Even Saint-Cyr’s inauguration was a sign of the unrest Haiti experienced. Nearly 90% of Port-au-Prince’s gang-controlled area has seen a significant displacement of the federal government.

One well-known gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, even threatened to disrupt Saint-Cyr’s inauguration on Thursday morning.

In a video posted online, Cherizier stated, “We have decided to march on the premier’s office and the Villa d’Accueil to end it all.

People of Haiti, take good of yourselves and help us, he urged the residents of Port-au-Prince to assist him and his fighters as they approached the mansion.

However, Cherizier ultimately had no success. A security mission led by Kenya and supported by the United Nations made a statement outlining the increase in police patrols in the area.

According to the statement, “Armed gangs had plotted to disrupt national stability and render the country ungovernable,” claiming that law enforcement had been able to stop those plans.

On August 7, Haiti’s Port-au-Prince [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] celebrates Laurent Saint-Cyr’s appointment to the transitional presidential council.

However, Saint-Cyr’s appointment has drawn criticism for what it represents in the country’s devastation.

Both Alix-Didier Fils-Aime, the prime minister of Haiti, and Saint-Cyr are light-skinned, mixed-race businesspeople who both made money in the private sector. While Fils-Aime led an online business, Saint-Cyr worked in the insurance sector.

Only 5% of Haitians identify as mixed race, compared to the majority of people who are Black. Latin America’s poorest nation is the one it is.

Some critics worry that Haiti’s government, which has traditionally relied on the wealthy and people with lighter skin, will experience a downward trend.

Since 2016, there hasn’t been a presidential election in the nation, and there has been more unrest since Jovenel Moise’s assassination in 2021.

Criminal organizations have criticized the current government leadership as ineffective and corrupt while utilizing the power vacuum to expand their own influence.

By the end of that year, three of its members had been charged with corruption despite having only been established in April 2024. They had all denied wrongdoing.

The transitional presidential council has been a rotating leadership position for nine members, who are widely unpopular.

Before the council’s final meeting on February 7, 2026, Saint-Cyr is supposed to be its leader. The council and Saint-Cyr are expected to give the election’s winner control at that point.

Elections for positions in the federal government are scheduled to take place in three stages, starting in November and culminating in the presidential election in February. However, opponents warn that those plans could be thwarted by gang violence.

Between October 2024 and June this year, according to the UN, 4, 864 people died in Haiti.

Nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result of violent threats that have forced essential services, including hospitals and roads, to close.

Saint-Cyr pleaded with the international community to provide additional resources in response to Haiti’s humanitarian situation, which is regarded as one of the worst in the world.

At Thursday’s ceremony, Saint-Cyr urged all international partners to increase their support, send more soldiers, and train more people. I’m urging the security forces to increase their operations.

There were ambassadors from a number of foreign nations present. He made some remarks about them.

According to Saint-Cyr, “our nation is experiencing one of its greatest crises in all its history.” Not the time for beautiful speeches, he said. The time has come to take action.

Trump to nominate ‘loyalist’ Stephen Miran to the Federal Reserve board

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Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has announced that he will seek out Stephen Miran for four months to fill a vacancy while looking for a permanent position.

On Thursday, the president made his decision public.

Adriana Kugler, a Biden appointee who is stepping down on Friday, would take the place of Miran, the chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. Hugler will be rehiring as a Georgetown University tenured professor.

The Senate may approve the term until January 31, 2026. Trump claimed that the White House is still looking for candidates for the February 1 opening of the 14-year Fed board seat.

In the first Trump administration, Miran, who was an economic adviser to the Treasury, pushed for a radical change in the rules governing the Fed, including a ban on executive branch appointments, abolition of the “revolving door,” and nationalization of the Fed’s 12 regional banks.

Trump has the first chance to rein in his authority over the Fed, one of the few remaining independent federal agencies. Trump has repeatedly criticized Jerome Powell, the current chair, for maintaining the White House’s and the central bank’s ongoing dispute over short-term interest rates.

Trump’s income tax cuts and tariff increases have a strong following from Miran, who claims that the combination will result in enough economic growth to lower budget deficits. He has also minimized Powell’s concern that Trump’s tariffs will lead to higher inflation.

Trump has unsuccessfully pressed Fed policymakers to lower rates, including Powell, his six fellow board members, and the 12 Fed bank presidents. Even as a placeholder, Miran’s appointment to the central bank gives the president a potentially more direct route to achieving his wish for a simpler monetary policy.

Trump’s “loyalist”

However, it’s unclear how long Miran would spend working on his ideas at the Fed before even casting a vote on interest rates.

Senate confirmation of all Fed nominees requires a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, a vote by that committee advancing the nomination, and a number of floor votes before the full Senate, where Democrats have been stifling the approval process for Trump appointments.

Elizabeth Warren, the Senate Banking Committee’s top-ranking Democrat, said on X following the announcement that Stephen Miran is a “trump loyalist and one of the chief architects of the President’s chaotic tariff policy that has hurt Americans’ wallets. I’ll be asking him whether he would support Donald Trump or serve the American people.

The Senate will take a summer break until September 2 for that reason.

Before Miran’s term ends, there are only four policy-setting meetings, including one on September 16 and 17.

At their July meeting, Fed policymakers kept the policy rate at its current 4.25 percent to 4.5% range, with Powell citing a slightly higher inflation rate and the possibility that Trump’s tariffs could keep it that way as justifications.

Famine kills nearly 200 in Gaza amid ‘apocalyptic’ battle for survival

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Gaza health authorities say nearly 200 people, including 96 children, have died of hunger in Gaza, as the starving population battles against the odds to get food from dangerous airdrops and deadly aid hubs run by the GHF.

As Israel’s man-made famine under the ongoing blockade tightened its grip on the enclave, hospitals recorded four more deaths from “famine and malnutrition” on Thursday – two of them children – bringing the total to 197.

Amid the mounting death toll, World Health Organization (WHO) director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that about 12,000 children younger than five were suffering from acute malnutrition in July – the highest monthly figure ever recorded.

The scenes in Gaza City are “apocalyptic”, said Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili, with hundreds of people scrambling for scraps from aid pallets airdropped among the rubble of destroyed buildings.

“Here the fight is not over food, but for survival,” he said.

Mustafa Tanani, a displaced Palestinian at the scene, said that some of the food had failed to land and was “hanging up high” between the buildings, making it “too risky” to try to reach. “It’s like a battle here. We come from far away and end up with nothing,” he said.

“Everyone is carrying bags of aid, and we don’t even manage to get anything. The planes are dropping aid for nothing. Look where they threw it. Up there, between the buildings. It’s dangerous for us,” he said.

Children at risk

Two children died of hunger in Gaza on Thursday, including a two-year-old girl in the al-Mawasi area, according to Nasser Hospital.

Raising the alarm over chronic child malnutrition, the United Nations said that its partners were able to reach only 8,700 of the 290,000 children under age five who desperately needed food and nutritional supplements.

Amjad Shawa, the head of the NGO Network in Gaza, told Al Jazeera Arabic that at least 200,000 children in the Gaza Strip suffer from severe malnutrition, with many deaths caused by a lack of baby formula and nutritional supplements under Israel’s blockade, in place since March.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said that only 92 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday, far less than the 500-600 that the United Nations estimates are needed daily to meet basic needs.

Most of the aid that did make it in was prevented from reaching its intended recipients due to widespread “looting and robbery”, as a result of “deliberate security chaos” orchestrated by Israel, said the office.

‘Orchestrated killing’

As the hunger crisis deepened, Doctors Without Borders, better known by its French-language acronym MSF, called for the closure of the notorious US- and Israeli-backed GHF, which runs deadly aid hubs where more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed trying to reach food.

The NGO published a report on Thursday featuring testimony from front-line staff that Palestinians were being deliberately targeted at the sites, which they said amounted to “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid.

MSF operates two healthcare centres – al-Mawasi and al-Attar clinics – in direct proximity to GHF sites in southern Gaza, which received 1,380 casualties within seven weeks, treating 71 children for gunshot wounds, 25 of whom were under the age of 15.

“In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians,” said the report.

MSF patient Mohammed Riad Tabasi told Al Jazeera he had seen 36 people killed in the space of 10 minutes at a GHF site. “It was unbearable,” he said. “War is one thing, but this … aid distribution is another. We’ve never been humiliated like this.”

Deadly strikes

As the population battled for survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News his country intended to take military control of all of Gaza.

On Thursday, Israel continued to launch deadly air strikes on residential areas, killing at least 22 people.

In Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported that a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed five civilians.

An attack on the municipality of Bani Suheila, east of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis city, killed at least two people, according to a source from Nasser Hospital.

Six others were killed in earlier attacks in the Khan Younis area. One child died while attempting to retrieve airdropped aid there.

In northern Gaza’s Jabalia, at least one person was killed, according to a local medical source.

Palestine’s Wafa news agency reported several deadly attacks in Gaza City, one targeting a tent in the city’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood that killed at least six people.

The second attack targeted a separate residential area in the city, killing a woman and injuring others, said Wafa.

“Israel’s military escalation continues without any sign of abating. And civilians are still bearing the brunt of this conflict,” said Abu Azzoum.

CDC reports ultraprocessed foods comprise more than half of the US diet

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States has released the summary of a new survey confirming that ultra-processed foods make up a majority of Americans’ caloric intake.

The study, published on Thursday, involved tracking the meals and snacks of Americans from August 2021 to August 2023.

During that period, 55 percent of the calories consumed by Americans came from ultra-processed foods, according to a mean calculated by the survey authors.

That number was even higher for younger people involved in the study. Youths ranging from age one to 18 reported that nearly 62 percent of their diet was highly processed. That number dipped to 53 percent among adults over age 19.

Ultra-processed foods are common and can take a variety of forms, from pre-packaged snacks, frozen foods and bottled soda drinks.

But Thursday’s findings are likely to add fuel to a campaign under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to reform the US diet, as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign (MAHA).

Just one day before the latest CDC numbers were published, Kennedy used his social media account to once again blame high-calorie, processed foods for a variety of ailments.

“Genes don’t cause epidemics. They may provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin — and we know what it is. It’s sugar and ultra-processed foods,” Kennedy wrote on the platform X on Wednesday.

Studies have repeatedly shown links between highly processed foods and detrimental health conditions like obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Kennedy, however, has been criticised for seeking “environmental toxins” to explain conditions like autism, which researchers largely believe to result from a variety of factors, including genetic ones.

Thursday’s survey results are part of a long-running study tracking what American adults and children eat and drink on a daily basis through interviews, body measurements and laboratory testing.

Known as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the study has its limitations: Interviews rely on self-reported food consumption, for instance.

But its origins stretch back to the 1960s, and since 1999, the study has continued without interruption, according to the CDC. About 5,000 people take part each year.

In the latest edition of the survey, researchers found that income played a significant role in how much ultra-processed foods were consumed per household. High-income groups corresponded with lower mean percentages of highly processed foods consumed.

This was particularly pronounced among adults. For those whose salaries were equivalent to 3.5 times the federal poverty level or more, a mean of 50.4 percent of their diet was comprised of processed foods.

That number rose to 54.7 percent for those whose incomes were slightly above, at or below the federal poverty level.

The survey also identified the primary culinary culprits behind Americans’ consumption of highly processed foods.

Sandwiches, including burgers, were the highest source of ultra-processed foods, comprising 7.6 percent of the calories consumed by youth and 8.6 percent for adults. Sweet bakery foods were the next highest category, at 6.3 percent for minors and 5.2 percent for adults.

Sweetened beverages and savoury snacks were also prominent sources of calories.

But the study did contain some positive news, showing that the mean consumption of ultra-processed foods had decreased.

India’s Modi, Brazil’s Lula speak amid Trump tariff blitz

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva have spoken by phone, their offices said, discussing a broad range of topics that included tariffs imposed by the United States on goods from both countries.

Lula confirmed a state visit to India in early 2026 during the call on Thursday, which occurred a day after the Brazilian leader told the news agency Reuters that he would initiate a conversation among the BRICS group of countries on tackling US President Donald Trump’s levies, which are the highest on Brazil and India.

The group&nbsp, of major emerging economies&nbsp, also includes&nbsp, China, &nbsp, Russia and South Africa.

“The leaders discussed the international economic scenario and the imposition of unilateral tariffs. Brazil and India are, to date, the two countries&nbsp, most affected”, Lula’s office said in a statement.

Trump announced an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods on Wednesday, raising the total duty to 50 percent. The additional tariff, effective August 28, is meant to penalise India for continuing to buy Russian oil, Trump has said.

Trump has also slapped a 50 percent tariff on goods from Brazil, with lower levels&nbsp, for sectors such as aircraft, energy and orange juice, tying the move to what he called a “witch hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing ally on trial for an alleged coup plot to overturn his 2022 election loss.

On their call, Lula and Modi reiterated their goal of boosting bilateral trade to more than $20bn annually by 2030, according to the Brazilian president’s office, up from roughly $12bn last year.

Brasilia said they also agreed to expand the reach of the preferential trade agreement between India and the South American trade bloc Mercosur, and discussed the virtual payment platforms of their countries.

Modi’s office, in its statement, did not explicitly mention Trump or US tariffs, but said “the two leaders exchanged views on various regional and global issues of mutual interest”.

India is already signalling it may seek to rebalance its global partnerships after Trump’s salvo of tariffs on Indian goods.