Haiti and the Dominican Republic share both the island of Hispaniola and a painful and controversial history. On Tuesday the former Guatemala president said that the international community has abandoned Haiti to its fate and left the Dominican Republic to deal with the consequences of political instability, an economic crisis and the human drama of refugees crossing the Hispaniola borders. He drew the international community’s attention to Haiti’s suffering and asked for major powers to help the Dominican Republic assist the hemisphere’s poorest country. ‘The country on the east of the island, with its own problems, cannot withstand the burden of another poor sister nation.’ The Haitian people’s only escape is the Dominican Republic ‘because all the world’s doors have been closed and that has a huge impact on the economy. Uncontrolled migration strikes directly at health care and education, and contributes to job insecurity.’ Voodoo and Roman Catholicism are the official religions of Haiti. See also outreach ministries to Haiti at:

Today a week-long meeting by officials including the director-general of the World Health Organisation and the director of the Pan American Health Organisation has ended. They met with top Brazilian officials, including the minister of health. They were working to support the country’s efforts to respond to the outbreak of the Zika virus and to exchanging experiences on epidemiological surveillance and treatment of cases of the virus across various nations. They studied the issues surrounding possible neurological complications associated with the virus. Their mission was to enhance the capacity of countries to respond to Zika in the Americas. In addition, a group of experts convened in Colombia last week to support that country’s efforts towards eradicating the virus. To date there have been 107 cases of Zika among US travellers returning from infected areas.

A US anti-trafficking organisation, in partnership with a Nepalese NGO, has just completed a first-of-its-kind raid and arrest of two major traffickers. For the first time, the Indian Police Special Task force partnered with US and Nepalese organisations in this way. The Kathmandu Post reported, ‘After a tip-off received by the crime branch of the Indian Police, officers raided an apartment in New Delhi on Friday and rounded up two suspected traffickers and eleven women. This was after Shanti Peace Rehabilitation Centre and Free for Life International, organisations working against trafficking, had given information about the trafficking of Nepali women to various Gulf countries via New Delhi and Colombo.’ It has now been revealed that the two traffickers had been sending up to forty trafficked women a month to Iraq and Kuwait. See also

Following Donald Trump’s ‘Super Tuesday’ win of eight US states in the primary contests, the question of what a Trump presidency would mean for Israel is being discussed. He told CNN, ‘As president there is nothing I would rather do than to bring peace to Israel and its neighbours. I may not be successful in doing the toughest negotiation in the world, so it doesn’t help if I start saying I’m very pro-Israel.’ Trump has also expressed scepticism over achieving a two-state solution, and said he would know within his first six months in office whether a deal can be made. His deepest tie to the Jewish community comes from his daughter, Ivanka, who converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner. Meanwhile, Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan who has a long history of anti-Semitism, recently praised Trump for his refusal to take ‘Jewish money’ as Farrakhan backed his presidency campaign.

Funding for a new mental trauma service for Northern Ireland has been announced by health minister Simon Hamilton. He said, ‘I am pleased to report that positive progress is being made. The final model will be based on the internationally-recognised Stepped Care approach, with low-level interventions provided by voluntary and community organisations, and more intensive interventions by professionals under the auspices of a new Regional Specialist Service. To assist in getting our new mental trauma service off the ground, I have invested £175,000 of funding for early set-up costs.’ The service will comprehensively address the legacy of the Troubles and unmet mental health needs, and improve individual, family and community experiences of mental health trauma care. It will offer better psychological and social outcomes for individuals and their families and communities who were traumatised at that time.

Forty kidnapped Assyrian believers have been released by IS. They were among the 230 taken a year ago. Millions of dollars were paid in ransom. The captives were released and sent to the town of Tal Tamr, after mediation by a top Assyrian priest in northern Syria. IS had demanded a ransom of £12.77 million for the group: this figure was later lowered following negotiations, but the final amount is not known. A Syrian Christian said the worldwide Assyrian community had launched a campaign for the captives' release shortly after they were abducted. A bank account was opened in the Iraqi city of Irbil and donations began to flow in from around the world. ‘We paid millions of dollars for their release, but it was less than half the amount asked for,’ said the spokesman.

‘I had to cover my kippah with a cap to be safe in public,’ said Lev, a young Jew from Paris, ‘and I worried that someone would kill my daughter at her school.’ Lev’s family are now safely starting a new life in Israel: they went on a sponsored Wings of Eagles Freedom Flight. Lev was overcome with gratitude when this help was made available: ‘Thank you for helping us leave the fear and terror behind!’ He brought his family to Israel before both the kosher supermarket attack that killed four and the heinous Charlie Hebdo massacre that left the people of Paris paralysed with fear. Such fear and terror is being felt today not only in France but also by Moldovan, Turkish, Venezuelan, Spanish and other Jews. It is growing across the globe as Islamic terrorists slaughter the innocent.

European countries' shameful response to the migrant crisis and their counter-terrorism policies risk undermining their historic commitment to human rights, Amnesty International warned on Wednesday. They used their annual report to take some of the world's oldest democracies to task. Several countries in the EU passport-free Schengen area have re-imposed border controls in response to refugees fleeing war and persecution. ‘That Europe, the richest bloc in the world, is not able to take care of the basic rights of the most persecuted people in the world is shameful’, said Amnesty. It called for safe, legal routes for people to reach Europe and said they should be treated on a case by case basis, not subjected to ‘collective punishment’. Amnesty was alarmed by the counter-terrorism laws being introduced across Europe, in particular the state of emergency implemented in France. ‘The system that has been built over seventy years to protect human rights now needs to be protected from a wholesale attack.’

Muslim leader warns British Pakistanis

There have been three cases recently where Asian men have been convicted of rape or sex trafficking offences. Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, has made what some consider controversial statements regarding members of the Pakistani community involved in grooming girls, saying they harboured racist attitudes towards white girls. He observed there is an over-representation of Pakistani men convicted of child sexual exploitation and on-street gang-grooming in which the majority of victims are white. He warned British Pakistanis against ‘burying our head in the sand’ regarding grooming gangs operating in their communities. See also:

The Fresh Start group of Conservative MPs has dismissed David Cameron's EU renegotiation as a failure across a series of policy areas, saying many goals had not been attempted or only partially achieved. They said, 'The Prime Minister has now come to the end of a hard-won renegotiation. It has taken place during a period of great change within Europe, and his own negotiating position was backed up by the certainty of a UK referendum. This gave the best possible chance for change in Europe we are likely to see for a generation. So was the EU able to rise to the occasion and show that it is capable of fundamental reform?’ Over 140 Conservative MPs (out of 329) are expected to vote to leave the EU, with dozens still undecided. Attitudes are changing: last week six cabinet members said they would campaign for withdrawal, as did Boris Johnson, mayor of London.