Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Protests erupt in Haiti ahead of President Moise's funeral
Supporters of President Jovenel Moise set up roadblocks in Haiti demanding justice as the nation prepares to bury the murdered leader.
Violent unrest was reported in northern Haiti on Wednesday, as demonstrators vented their anger over the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, who will be buried on Friday. At least one person was killed in the violence.
The individual was shot in the community of Quartier-Morin, which is near Trou-du-Nord, where Moise was born.
Blockades were set up between the two communities,
temporarily halting cars from entering or leaving, while plumes of black smoke rose
nearby.
Protesters blame police for the assassination
National police chiefs arriving in Cap-Haitien to help oversee Moise's funeral were met with an acrimonious response from the slain president's supporters, who blame the police for his death on July 7.
Government officials claim Moise was murdered by a team of predominantly Colombian mercenaries, but many questions remain, with some Moise supporters suspecting that the president's security did not do enough to protect him.
Meanwhile, Moise's widow Martine showed up in public for the first time since returning from Miami last weekend.
Dressed in black, wearing a face mask and with her heavily plastered right arm in a sling, Martine Moise sat in silence beneath a portrait of the president as a priest delivered a eulogy to her late husband.
jsi/dj (AP, Reuters)
might be next if the fighting continues.
The last time the Taliban was in power, they sheltered proPakistan militants who had hijacked an Indian civilian airliner to Kandahar in 1999.
"Over the past years, India stuck to a principled position in terms of not negotiating with the Taliban," said Rani Mullen, associate professor at the College of William and Mary, Virginia, and a senior visiting fellow at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research.
"While admirable in terms of not wanting to negotiate with terrorists and supporting the democratically elected government of Afghanistan, this has now put India at a disadvantageous position," she told DW.
Other stakeholders, led by the US, have been engaging with the Taliban for years, she added.
Mullen expects the Taliban to very likely be in power by the end of the year. "They are already attacking urban centers and are in de facto control of the majority of rural areas," she said.
According to reports last month, India reached out to factions of the Taliban and is willing to engage with the outfit — a significant shift in Indian policy.
Several experts believe the decision to open talks with the Taliban is the right way to go.
"India is wise to hedge its bets by engaging the Taliban, even as it maintains support for the Kabul government," said Elizabeth Threlkeld, senior fellow and deputy director of the South Asia program at the Washingtonbased Stimson Center.
"The Taliban are on the rise in Afghanistan and will be looking to diversify their contacts within the region beyond Pakistan — presenting an opportunity for New Delhi," Threlkeld told DW.
According to her, Indian policymakers should continue the quiet outreach to the Taliban, while attempting to drive a wedge between the group and Pakistan.
Pakistan's role in Afghanistan
Indian and Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of militarily supporting and sheltering the Taliban leadership and its fighters, who they say have been based across the border over the past two decades.
Many believe that if the Taliban were to return to power, Islamabad would stand to gain the most.
However, such a situation might also leave Pakistan "deeply vulnerable to spillover violence across its border," Threlkeld said.
"Managing this risk will be a challenge for Pakistan, distracting it from its rivalry with India and potentially jeopardizing the security of its infrastructure projects with China," she added.
Professor Mullen also believes that Pakistan might have less pull with the Taliban than they would like others to believe. "They [Pakistan] have not been able to deliver the Taliban for negotiations over the past few years, and the Taliban now see that they are no longer dependent on Pakistan," she said.
A civil war in Afghanistan?
Meanwhile, a resurgent Taliban has dashed hopes for peace and stability in Afghanistan, at least in the short term. The Afghan government, led by President Ashraf Ghani, has vowed to recapture the territories lost to the Taliban.
Many observers expect a civil war in the coming months.
"Afghanistan is in for a very long, full-scale civil war. But it would be far more difficult for the Taliban this time," Bharat Karnad, author and emeritus professor at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, told DW.
"This is for two reasons: one is that the local Hazara and Shia militias, backed by Iran, are coming up, aided, and assisted by the Afghan secret service [National Directorate of Security or NDS]. They are being amply supplied with arms and ammunition, communications equipment, among others," he said.
"The other is that the Northern Alliance is going to revive again," he added, referring to the resistance group in northern Afghanistan that was formed in late 1996 in opposition to the Taliban's Islamic Emirate.
General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi was the commander of that military front. His appointment as Afghanistan's new defense minister last month was a "marker of the Northern Alliance coming back into the picture," Karnad said.
"[Bismillah Khan] is going to activate his contacts. The Uzbeks and the Tajiks of Afghanistan are coming back assisted by the Central Asian states, India and Russia.
"Once all these players come into action, Pakistan becomes very isolated. Their connections to the Taliban become a liability for them, but they cannot cut themselves off of the Taliban."
'The Taliban will not gain power very easily'
Karnad also argued that India has more options and is in a far better position now than it was the last time the Taliban came to power.
"India has already established contacts within the Taliban, which is faction ridden and not a very centralized or cohesive force. Indian intelligence agencies have had long-time 'arrangements' with some of these factions," he said.
"This time, the Taliban will not gain power very easily. A Taliban regime is not in the offing anytime soon."
Gautam Mukhopadhaya, another former envoy to Afghanistan, said the coming weeks until October will be critical.
"India will continue to support the Afghan state and people as long as there is no state collapse," he argued. "Even then, India will find ways to support the Afghan people through education and other opportunities in India."
As for a civil war, he believed that was unlikely. "There is a considerable ground to cover before state collapse and civil war. The more likely scenario is one of coordinated armed resistance against the Taliban," he said.
India’s bet, he added, could possibly be that the "Taliban will not last in power forever if they try to take over and impose a repressive emirate."
innovations might also pave the way to find more sustainable fuel sources that could benefit other industries. "Now, there's a lot of money for trying to create alternatives for fossil fuels. Then they might discover some kind of hydrogen fuel system that could be copied for airplanes," said
Toivonen.
Space tourism is becoming a booming industry. In a report last year, Swiss investment bank UBS estimated that suborbital and orbital space tourism could have a market value of $3 billion by 2030.
Space tourism is here to stay
One question that pops up regularly is whether the space outside the Earth is meant for humans.
"There is a big ethical issue there. We have destroyed our planet; and then we go to space and destroy that as well. Legislation is completely lacking. It looks like the Wild West at the moment," Toivonen said.
Whatever your take is, the commercial race to space is in full flight.
If strapping in on a rocket isn't your thing, the spaceflight company Space Perspective is planning to take passengers to the edge of space in a high-tech version of a hydrogen-powered hot air balloon "the size of a football stadium." The first flights are planned for early 2024, with tickets priced at a more affordable $125,000 per person.
And, if you're planning a different type of holiday, the company Orbital Assembly Corporation plans to open a luxury space hotel in 2027. The Voyager Station features a restaurant, gym and Earth-viewing bars. A 3-1/2 day stay will set you back only $5 million.