Surgeon general says widespread gun violence has led to ‘unimaginable pain’ for victims across the country.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has declared gun violence a public health crisis in the United States.
In an advisory issued on Tuesday, Murthy called for more stringent laws to limit the widespread availability of firearms, which many blame for the country’s unparalleled levels of gun violence.
“Firearm violence is an urgent public health crisis that has led to loss of life, unimaginable pain, and profound grief for far too many Americans,” Murthy said in a statement.
While high-profile mass shootings attract a large share of attention, everyday gun violence is a persistent threat that has led to a dismal upward trend of gun injuries and deaths. Murthy noted on Tuesday that young people and communities of colour are especially impacted.
The toll of firearm violence on young people has been particularly devastating. As shared in my new Surgeon General’s Advisory, firearm violence is now the leading cause of death among children and teens. https://t.co/bNS7xD9Bhppic.twitter.com/S6SyXrJpgS
— Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) June 25, 2024
It is unclear what changes, if any, the declaration could bring, with efforts to enact gun control at a standstill at the federal level, where many conservative politicians resolutely oppose any efforts to place greater limitations on firearms access.
Many Republican-led states have moved to further roll back existing restrictions. The National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful political group that has fought to further loosen limits to firearms access, called the advisory an “extension of the Biden administration’s war on law-abiding gun owners”.
Murthy said that the impact of gun violence extends beyond the roughly 50,000 people killed in the US per year, with lingering effects for those who witness or survive shootings or deal with injuries or the loss of loved ones.
“America should be a place where all of us can go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that that’s going to put our life at risk,” he told the Associated Press, calling for steps such as greater background checks, the restriction of guns in public spaces, and the banning of high-power automatic rifles.
The report notes that gun violence became the leading cause of death among US children and youths in 2020, and that firearms-related deaths, which include murders and accidental deaths as well as suicides, have ticked upwards.
Such rates of gun violence make the US an aberration among comparably wealthy countries: the advisory notes that the country’s firearm mortality rate for young people is 11 times that of France, 36 times that of Germany, and 121 times that of Japan, where access to guns is highly regulated.
Eight-year-old is in critical condition after the attack at the Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park in a Detroit suburb.
At least nine people, including two young children, have been wounded after being shot at a city-run water park in Michigan in the United States, officials said.
An attacker opened fire at a splash pad in a Detroit suburb on Saturday where families gathered to escape the summer heat.
Police, who determined the incident as random gunfire, tracked a suspect to a home, where the man died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
An eight-year-old boy is believed to be in critical condition after he was shot in the head.
The boy’s mother is also in critical condition after being wounded in the abdomen and leg, and his four-year-old brother is in stable condition with a leg wound.
The other six victims, all 30 years or older, were in stable condition. They included a woman and her husband and a 78-year-old man.
A man got out of a vehicle in front of Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park, in Rochester Hills, Michigan, at about 5pm (21:00 GMT) and fired about 30 shots from a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, reloading several times, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told a news conference.
We had an active shooter at the splash pad on Auburn in Rochester Hills. That is still an active crime scene and we potentially have the suspect contained nearby, but we asked for the moment people stay away from the area. We have numerous wounded victims. More to follow.
One witness reported that the attacker appeared to use two handguns during the attack, but that has not yet been confirmed.
“People were falling, getting hit, trying to run,” Bouchard said. “Terrible things that unfortunately all of us in our law enforcement business have seen way too much.”
The attacker was “apparently in no rush. Just calmly walked back to his car,” the sheriff added.
‘Tragedy’
The suspect did not live in Rochester Hills and investigators do not yet know why he went to the splash pad.
Officials did not release the suspect’s name, but the police described him as a 42-year-old white man and said officials believe he lived with his mother.
At the splash pad, authorities found a handgun, three empty magazines and 28 spent shell casings. At the home, they recovered a semiautomatic rifle and another handgun believed to have been used by the suspect to take his life.
Rochester Hills is about 30 miles (50km) north of Detroit.
The neighbouring community Oxford Township, also in Oakland County, was the scene of a 2021 mass school shooting where student Ethan Crumbley, then 15, killed four students and wounded six other students and a teacher at Oxford High School.
The Oxford Resiliency Center, established to help those impacted by the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School, remains in operation and can assist community members, police said.
“Our most fervent hope, at least at his point, is that all of the injured victims have speedy recoveries,” Bouchard said. “None of us … anticipated going into Father’s Day weekend with this kind of tragedy that families will be deeply affected by forever.”
Supreme Court rules prohibition on device that increases the firing rate of semi-automatic weapons is unlawful.
The United States Supreme Court declared a federal ban on “bump stock” devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly unlawful, rejecting yet another firearms restriction.
In a six-to-three ruling on Friday, the justices upheld a lower court’s decision siding with a gun shop owner and gun-rights advocate who challenged the ban by claiming a US agency improperly interpreted a federal law prohibiting machineguns as extending to bump stocks.
The conservative justices were in the majority, with the liberal justices dissenting.
The rule was imposed in 2019 by the administration of former President Donald Trump after the devices were used during a 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at a Las Vegas country music festival.
President Joe Biden cited the 2017 incident decrying the top court’s decision.
“Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation. Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation,” Biden said in a statement.
“We know thoughts and prayers are not enough. I call on Congress to ban bump stocks, pass an assault weapon ban, and take additional action to save lives – send me a bill and I will sign it immediately.”
For years, the US has suffered from major gun violence problems, including mass shootings. The country has seen 251 mass shootings so far this year, according to the website Gun Violence Archive. Gun attacks killed 18,854 people in the United States last year.
Still, conservative Republicans often oppose government restriction on access to firearms, arguing that owning guns is a legal right enshrined in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said after Friday’s ruling, “The court has spoken and their decision should be respected.”
Leavitt called the former president, who is challenging Biden in the presidential elections in November, a “fierce defender” of gun rights.
The case centred on how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a US Department of Justice agency, interpreted a federal law, which defined machineguns as weapons that can “automatically” fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger”.
“We hold that a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a ‘machine gun’ because it cannot fire more than one shot ‘by a single function of the trigger’,” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote.
“And, even if it could, it would not do so ‘automatically.’ ATF, therefore, exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule that classifies bump stocks as machine guns.”
Federal law prohibits the sale or possession of machineguns, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Bump stocks use a semi-automatic’s recoil to allow it to slide back and forth while “bumping” the shooter’s trigger finger, resulting in rapid fire. Federal officials said the rule was needed to protect public safety in a nation facing persistent firearms violence.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international nonprofit, has led its own investigation into what happened that day in the lead-up to Vega’s death.
Last month, it denounced the shooting as an “apparent extrajudicial execution” in an open letter to President Noboa, detailing alleged human rights abuses committed by the military.
According to HRW, an autopsy report revealed Vega’s body had four projectile wounds, causing lacerations to his lungs and intestine. He ultimately died from internal bleeding.
The nonprofit also said that witness descriptions, as well as photos and videos of the altercation, reveal the soldiers appeared to “have been slow to provide aid”, despite the life-threatening injuries.
“They delayed several minutes before calling an ambulance, and this was decisive because the wounds were serious,” said Abraham Aguirre García, a lawyer for the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, a nonprofit in Guayaquil.
Aguirre is representing the Vega family in ongoing legal proceedings against the military: The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the soldiers for use of excessive force. He believes the military opened fire on February 2 with the intent to kill.
“The military never complied with the obligation to use force progressively. They never took into account the risks of shooting,” he said.
The military, however, offered its own version of events in its February social media post. It said Vega and Velasco “received first aid” from the local fire department at the scene, before “being transferred through the chain of custody to a health facility”.
In an interview with the local television network Ecuavisa, military commander Carlos Salvador also said that the soldiers aimed at the Chevrolet’s wheels, not its passengers.
He blamed “the irregularities of the area, the movement of the vehicle and the recklessness of the driver” for Vega’s death and Velasco’s injuries.
The Vega family, however, has called for a ballistic examination to create a three-dimensional model of the crime scene, in order to understand the precise circumstances surrounding the shooting. A prosecutor is investigating the soldiers involved in the incident.
In response to questions from Al Jazeera, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement, “The case is being investigated by the competent authority. Our institution is providing all the related support.”
In the aftermath, though, Velasco was charged with assault and resisting arrest. He spent a month and a half under house arrest.
Ultimately, a local judge closed the investigation into his behaviour and set him free on April 10.
Garry Conille, who briefly served in the role from 2011 to 2012, has since worked as a regional director for UNICEF.
A nine-member council in charge of overseeing Haiti’s political transition has named politician Garry Conille as the Caribbean nation’s next prime minister.
Tuesday’s decision comes amid a period of turmoil for the country, which has seen gangs seize control over much of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Conille is a familiar face in the role of prime minister: He served for four months, from October 2011 to February 2012, and resigned after clashing with then-President Michel Martelly.
He now takes over for interim Prime Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert, who was appointed to the role after the previous prime minister, Ariel Henry, formally resigned in late April.
The process of selecting a new prime minister was a rocky one, complete with false starts and controversy.
Since the assassination of then-President Jovenel Moise in July 2021, Haiti has not held a federal election.
Henry, an unelected official chosen days before the assassination, served as acting president in Moise’s stead after his shooting death.
But Henry’s failure to call a vote to replace Moise has heightened tensions in the country. In January 2023, the last elected federal officials – 10 senators – saw their terms expire.
In the meantime, the country’s gangs sought to fill the power vacuum, asserting power over upwards of 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, including roadways in and out of the city.
The United Nations estimates more than 362,000 Haitians have been displaced by the ensuing bloodshed. During the first three months of 2024 alone, gang violence has killed more than 1,500 people and injured hundreds more.
In March, Henry announced his decision to step down as prime minister, amid international and domestic pressure to do so.
He had recently travelled to Kenya to shore up support for an international security mission to help bolster Haiti’s police. But while Henry was abroad, gangs attacked key prisons and police stations, as well as the capital’s airport, leaving him stranded outside of the country.
In the aftermath, a regional cooperation bloc known as the Caribbean Community or CARICOM negotiated the creation of a transitional council to restore Haiti’s democracy.
Nine members were chosen, seven of whom would have voting powers. The council is set to be dissolved in 2026, after a new presidential election is held.
Conille’s appointment as prime minister came as the result of a six-to-one vote. Since 2023, he has served as a Latin America regional director for UNICEF, a UN agency that offers humanitarian aid to children.
But confusion has accompanied the process of choosing a new prime minister.
Last month, four of the transitional council’s seven voting members chose a former sport minister, Fritz Belizaire, to fill the post, only to walk back the announcement after critics said the proper protocols had not been followed.
Even Tuesday’s announcement was received with scepticism. Line Balthazar, the president of the Tet Kale party, told a local radio station on Monday that the selection process had thus far appeared to be improvised.
The Montana Accord, a Haitian civil society group, also questioned the transitional council’s commitment to transparency, noting it had not shared how it came to its decision.
“The suffering of the people is getting worse, while the gangs are taking control of more territory and committing more crimes,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday, urging “consequential measures” to restore stability in Haiti.
Meanwhile, gang leaders have warned they will not necessarily accept the transitional council or its choices.
“We’re not going to recognise the decisions that CARICOM takes,” Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the leader of the G9 Family and Allies gang, told Al Jazeera in March.
Families of the victims killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, have filed two wrongful death lawsuits: one against the firearm manufacturer and another against two technology companies, Meta and Microsoft, for their alleged role in marketing the weapon used.
Friday’s pair of lawsuits came on the second anniversary of the school shooting, one of the deadliest in United States history.
The gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, attacked Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, and killed 19 children and two teachers, leaving 17 more people injured.
The defendant in the first lawsuit, filed in the Uvalde County District Court, is Daniel Defense, a Georgia-based weapons manufacturer that produced the rifle the gunman used.
The second lawsuit, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, takes aim at Meta, owner of the social media platform Instagram, and the video game company Activision Blizzard, a subsidiary of Microsoft.
The complaint alleges that Activision’s first-person shooter game Call of Duty played a key role in shaping the gunman’s mindset.
It pointed out that the game bases its weapons on real-life models, and that the gunman played the game since he was 15 years old.
Call of Duty “creates a vividly realistic and addicting theater of violence in which teenage boys learn to kill with frightening skill and ease”, the lawsuit said.
That, in turn, led the attacker to seek out the gun he used in the video game as soon as he turned 18, according to the suit.
It also alleges that the gunman consumed pro-gun marketing on Instagram that reinforced the violent imagery he saw in the video game.
“Simultaneously, on Instagram, the shooter was being courted through explicit, aggressive marketing,” the families said in a statement.
“In addition to hundreds of images depicting and venerating the thrill of combat, Daniel Defense used Instagram to extol the illegal, murderous use of its weapons.”
The lawsuit accuses Instagram of failing to exercise adequate oversight over its platform, thereby allowing weapons sellers to have “an unsupervised channel to speak directly to minors, in their homes, at school, even in the middle of the night”.
In their statement, the families allege that Daniel Defense and the two technology companies together engaged in a “scheme that preys upon insecure, adolescent boys”.
“There is a direct line between the conduct of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” said Josh Koskoff, a lawyer representing the families.
“This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”
Koskoff’s firm, Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, previously represented the families of victims killed in the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, ultimately reaching a $73m settlement with gunmaker Remington in 2022.
Daniel Defense already faces other lawsuits related to the Uvalde shooting. In an appearance before the US Congress in 2022, the company’s CEO Marty Daniels denounced the attack as “pure evil”.
In a statement that same year, however, Daniels also called similar lawsuits against companies like his “frivolous” and “politically motivated”.
Activision has also condemned the Uvalde shooting, saying it was “horrendous and heartbreaking in every way”.
“We express our deepest sympathies to the families and communities who remain impacted by this senseless act of violence,” it said in a statement.
But, it added, “millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts”.
A lobbying group for the video game industry, the Entertainment Software Association, also pointed out that people in other countries play video games without resorting to the levels of violence seen in the US.
“We are saddened and outraged by senseless acts of violence,” the group said in a statement.
“At the same time, we discourage baseless accusations linking these tragedies to video gameplay, which detract from efforts to focus on the root issues in question and safeguard against future tragedies.”
Gun ownership is a prominent part of US culture, with the Second Amendment of the country’s Constitution protecting the right to “keep and bear arms”.
Earlier this week, the families of the Uvalde victims reached a $2m settlement with the small Texas city, after the Department of Justice found “cascading failures” in how law enforcement responded to the shooting, due to training issues and communication problems.
A separate federal lawsuit was filed on Wednesday against the 100 state police officers involved in the response to the shooting.
Announcement comes two days before the two-year anniversary of the massacre at the elementary school in the Texas city.
The city of Uvalde has reached a $2m settlement with most of the families of the victims of a mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas city, one of their lawyers has said.
The announcement on Wednesday came two days before the second anniversary of the massacre.
In one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, 19 children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022, when a gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and barricaded himself inside adjoining classrooms with dozens of students.
A US Department of Justice review found local police ignored accepted practices by failing to confront the attacker, instead waiting outside the classroom for more than an hour despite calls for help from the children.
“The city of Uvalde has agreed to pay its insurance of $2m, which is all that there was,” Josh Koskoff, who represented families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, said at a briefing to announce the agreement.
Another lawyer announced that the families of 19 of the victims launched a $500m federal lawsuit against nearly 100 state police officers who were part of the botched law enforcement response to one of the deadliest school shootings in United States history.
Families are suing 92 Texas Department of Public Safety officers who were at the incident, said Erin Rogiers, partner at Guerra LLP, who is representing families together with Koskoff and Bieder PC, in a statement.
State and federal officers made up the majority of the 376 law enforcement operatives who waited 77 minutes before confronting and killing the 18-year-old gunman, Koskoff said.
The lawsuit, seeking at least $500m in damages, is the latest of several seeking accountability for the law enforcement response.
It is the first lawsuit to be filed after a 600-page Justice Department report was released in January that catalogued “cascading failures” in training, communication, leadership and technology problems on the day of the shooting.
The lawsuit notes that state troopers did not follow their active shooter training or confront the shooter, even as the students and teachers inside were following their own lockdown protocols of turning off lights, locking doors and staying silent.
“The protocols trap teachers and students inside, leaving them fully reliant on law enforcement to respond quickly and effectively,” the families and their lawyers said in a statement.
Families of victims filed a separate lawsuit in December 2022 against local and state police, the city, and other school and law enforcement officials seeking at least $27bn and class-action status for survivors.
Kenyan President William Ruto is in the United States for a three-day state visit in the first such trip for an African leader since 2008.
When Ruto meets his counterpart Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, at the top of their agenda will be a multinational security intervention in the troubled Caribbean nation of Haiti – a mission that Kenya is leading and Washington is backing.
While the US has refused to contribute forces to the United Nations-backed initiative, Washington has nonetheless become Kenya’s loudest supporter and the mission’s biggest funder even as Nairobi faces domestic challenges over the strategy.
The planned deployment of police to Haiti – a first for the East African country outside the continent – has sparked fierce debates in Kenya’s Parliament and in its courts.
Here’s what we know about the planned mission, how Kenya got involved and why some are fiercely against it:
Kenyan President William Ruto [File: Monicah Mwangi/Reuters]
What’s the backdrop to the Haiti crisis?
The Caribbean nation has been racked by violence in recent months after gangs declared war on the government of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry in February.
The UN says more than 2,500 people were killed or injured across the country from January to March while at least 95,000 people have fled the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Henry had pleaded with the UN Security Council last year to deploy a mission that would bolster Haiti’s fragile security forces and help clamp down on rampant gang violence. For months, the Security Council failed to find a country to step up and lead such a mission after a previous UN mission to Haiti was beset by controversies.
By mid-2023, it emerged that the US was considering backing a Nairobi-led police mission and Kenyan officials were weighing the proposal. It came as a surprise to many: Kenya has sent troops on missions inside and outside Africa, but no African country has ever led a security mission outside the continent, and an army deployment is more traditional, rather than a police mission.
Kenyan officials highlighted historic connections between Haiti and Africa.
“Kenya stands with persons of African descent across the world,” then-Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua said.
Residents of the Lower Delmas area carry their belongings as they flee their homes due to gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on May 2, 2024 [Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters]
What is the MSS?
On October 2, the UN Security Council voted in favour of motions by the US and Ecuador to deploy the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti. It is not a UN mission but is being referred to as a “UN-backed initiative”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the mission “pivotal”. Washington has pledged $300m in funding while Canada has pledged $123m to Haiti with $80.5m allocated to the mission.
The 2,500-strong force will be led by 1,000 Kenyans from the Administrative Police Unit and the battle-trained paramilitary General Service Unit, called the Recce commandos. The commandos were previously tasked with quelling domestic riots and participating in operations against al-Shabab in neighbouring Somalia.
Several other countries have also pledged police, including Benin, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh and Chad.
Hundreds of Kenyan police have reportedly been undergoing training and taking French classes in preparation for their deployment. Kenyans speak English, Swahili and other Indigenous languages while Haitian French and Creole are the official languages of Haiti.
This week, an advance team of Kenyan forces touched down in Haiti, according to Kenyan media reports, coinciding with Ruto’s meeting with Biden.
The MSS will work in collaboration with Haiti’s police. They will look to rapidly wrest back key government infrastructure from the control of gangs. High-ranking Kenyan police commander Noor Gabow will reportedly lead the mission.
Why is Kenya getting involved in Haiti and who opposes the MSS?
The deployment faces fierce pushback from Kenya’s opposition lawmakers, human rights groups and lawyers, but Ruto has pressed ahead with it. In January, he told reporters it is because the mission was “a bigger calling to humanity”.
Had a telephone conversation with United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the developments in Haiti. @SecBlinken briefed me on the decision of the Summit of Caribbean Countries (Caricom) and the US, together with other partners, on the political situation in Haiti.…
— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) March 13, 2024
Opposition legislators accuse Ruto’s government of failing to secure Kenya and say the country is part of the initiative only for monetary gains. They also say authorities are deploying police in contradiction to the constitution, which allows only military deployments.
After one lawmaker challenged the mission in the courts, a judge declared in January that the government did not have the jurisdiction to deploy the police and a special security arrangement with Haiti would be required. It was that agreement that Henry was in Nairobi to sign in February when the gangs declared war in the then-Haitian prime minister’s absence, forcing him to resign and remain in exile in Puerto Rico.
Ruto’s government temporarily paused the MSS deployment in March after Henry’s resignation but resumed plans after the recent appointment of a new transitional governing council in Haiti under new Prime Minister Fritz Belizaire.
Despite Ruto’s manoeuvring, however, opposition lawmakers in Kenya filed another lawsuit to be heard in June.
Meanwhile, human rights activists point out that Kenya’s police force has long been accused of extrajudicial killings and torture. In July, the police opened fire on people protesting higher taxes and rising living costs, killing at least 35.
Many in Haiti are also wary of foreign interventions. The 15-year-long UN mission there has a tainted legacy, dogged with sexual abuse allegations against peacekeepers and accusations they introduced cholera to the country.
Former Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, second from left, after giving a lecture at United States International University in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 1, 2024 [Anrew Kasuku/AP]
Why did the US nominate Kenya and why is it not in the MSS?
Washington has been adamant about not sending troops to Haiti although officials have not given reasons. Despite “frantic” exchanges from Haitian leaders for Washington to send in an emergency unit at the peak of the recent violence in the country, the US refused, promising to move quickly on the MSS deployment instead, according to US media.
However, US contractors have been in Haiti for weeks now, building the operations base the MSS will use and securing supplies for the incoming police force. US officials have reportedly also been training personnel in Kenya for their deployment for months .
It is unclear how the US came to back Kenya for the Haiti mission – one official said “Kenya raised its hands” – but Washington has increasingly grown reliant on Nairobi for its security interests in the Horn of Africa in recent years. Kenya has a US base in Lamu county and cooperates with US forces fighting al-Shabab in Somalia.
While Washington’s friendly relations with Ethiopia have grown sour after the latter’s two-year-long war and Washington has criticised Uganda under President Yoweri Museveni over alleged human rights abuses, Nairobi has remained a steadfast ally in the region.
However, there are disagreements on the Haiti mission, analysts point out.
Kenya is “demanding the US do more to rally financial support for the UN basket fund that will cover the mission’s costs”, Meron Elias, a researcher at the International Crisis Group, said.
“Kenya also wants the US to commit greater backing to stemming the flow of arms into Haiti, including from US ports in Florida.”
What else will be on the agenda for Biden and Ruto?
Ruto’s state visit comes at a time when the US is looking to counter the expanding influence of China and Russia in Africa. Washington is eager to show that it is still in the game, despite being recently on the back foot in the Sahel region. Niger and Chad recently sent US troops stationed there packing.
Kenya means business. We urge international businesses to capitalise on the 60-year-old Kenya-U.S. relationship that is grounded on shared values of democracy, freedom and enterprise to invest in Kenya.
— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) May 22, 2024
Ruto, meanwhile, is seeking more foreign investment to offset Kenya’s debts. The country has barely avoided default on a $2bn debt that was due in June. Most of Kenya’s external debt is owed to China. It has borrowed immensely to prop up big infrastructure projects, including a railway line between Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa.
“Kenya means business,” Ruto tweeted after meeting US business leaders in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday. Atlanta is home to companies like Delta Air Lines, which is considering acquiring a major stake in national carrier Kenya Airways.
Climate financing for African countries, a cornerstone of Ruto’s foreign engagements, will also be in sharp focus as Kenya and other East African countries have dealt with deadly floods in the past month.
Daniel Perry was jailed for 25 years for shooting dead protester Garrett Foster in Austin in 2020.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has granted a full pardon to a former US Army sergeant and Uber driver who was jailed for 25 years for fatally shooting a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020.
Abbott, a Republican, in his pardon proclamation, cited the state’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defence law, one of the strongest such measures in the United States.
The announcement came shortly after the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole unanimously recommended a pardon for Daniel Perry and restoration of his firearm rights following an investigation that the board conducted at the governor’s request.
Perry, 37, was found guilty in April 2023 of murder in the death of 28-year-old Garrett Foster, a US Air Force veteran who was shot at a Black Lives Matter rally in Austin, the state capital, in July 2020.
The demonstration came amid a storm of protests across the country against racial injustice and police brutality in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May of that year.
Perry insisted he was acting in self-defence when he shot Foster, claiming he had no choice but to open fire with his handgun when Foster pointed the AK-47 he was legally carrying at Perry. Perry is white, as was Foster.
Perry was driving in Austin that night and had turned his Uber car onto a street where the demonstrators were marching, leading members of the crowd to believe they were in danger of being assaulted by his vehicle, according to media accounts of the incident.
During the trial, the two sides presented conflicting accounts of whether Foster levelled his gun at Perry.
‘Politics over justice’
In his pardon proclamation, Abbott said the jury’s verdict in effect “nullified” the state’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defence law. The statute removes a person’s duty to retreat from an unprovoked threat of violence before using deadly force if that person has a right to be there.
Perry’s lawyer, Doug O’Connell, said the pardon “corrects the courtroom travesty” of his client’s conviction, adding that Perry was “thrilled and elated to be free”.
“Daniel Perry was imprisoned for 372 days and lost the military career he loved,” O’Connell said in the statement, quoted by Austin television station KXAN. “We intend to fight to get Daniel’s military service characterisation upgraded to an honourable discharge.”
According to KXAN, Foster’s fiancee, Whitney Mitchell, shared her reaction in a joint statement with her mother, calling the pardon a “devastating blow” that “reopened deep wounds”.
Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza, a Democrat whose office brought the case against Perry, condemned the pardon, saying the parole board and the governor had “put their politics over justice and made a mockery of our legal system”.
The parole board gave no specific reason for its recommendation but said its investigation “delved into the intricacies” of Perry’s case, including a review of police reports, court records and witness statements.
Video captured the killing in Israel of Yaacub Touhi, a 50-year-old Palestinian who was a 20-year veteran of USAID. Touhi was shot ten times after an altercation near his home in Jaffa and Israeli media say an off-duty police officer has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
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The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
