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Donald Trump won the North Dakota Republican presidential caucuses on Monday, adding to his string of victories heading into Super Tuesday.
The former president finished first in voting conducted at 12 caucus sites, coming in ahead of former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who notched her first victory of the campaign on Sunday in the District of Columbia primary.
While Trump and President Joe Biden both face challengers, both are dominating their races and are on track to winning their nominations.
The White House hopefuls now turn their attention to Super Tuesday, when 16 states and one territory will vote in contests that amount to the single biggest delegate haul of any day in the presidential primary.
US President Joe Biden, former president Donald Trump and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. AP/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved.
North Dakota's Democratic-NPL Party is holding a presidential primary almost entirely by mail, with mail-in voting from 20 February to 30 March, and limited in-person voting for residents of Indian reservations. Biden, Representative Dean Phillips and six others are on the ballot.
North Dakota has long been a safe Republican state at the presidential level. Trump won it in the general elections of 2016 and 2020, winning about 63% and 65% of the vote.
It is also the only state without voter registration. Republican caucus voters were encouraged to be paying party members, but those who wouldn’t pay $50 for annual membership were asked to sign a pledge to affiliate with the party.
In 2016, it was the North Dakota delegation to the Republican National Convention who helped Trump secure the number needed for the presidential nomination.
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The UN's top human rights official has issued a warning about elections in Hungary, saying the country shows signs of sliding into autocracy and authoritarianism.
Speaking to the Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk cited Hungary as an example of a state that has turned away from liberal democracy in favour of a harsher, more restrictive political model.
"Autocracy and military coups are the negation of democracy. Every election – even an imperfect one – constitutes an effort to at least formally acknowledge the universal aspiration to democracy," Turk said.
He said that, although the “formal structure of election” still exists in Hungary, civic freedoms had been reduced as power had been concentrated in the hands of the government while the judiciary was “deeply undermined”, and media freedoms had been “eroded”.
Hungary had a presidential vote on 26 February 2024. It will hold local and EU elections on 9 June.
Türk cited countries around the world for their various encroachments and full-on attacks on human rights, civil society and participatory democracy.
Hungary has seen Prime Minister Viktor Orbán steadily tighten his grip on the country since he came to power in 2010. Along with various moves to restrict internal opposition, Orbán has also pivoted Hungary away from the EU and NATO towards engagement with authoritarian regimes including Russia and China.
He has also invoked various conspiracy theories and debunked claims in service of his agenda against both Western-led internationalism and in particular migration.
The paranoid tendency
Such theories were also targeted by Türk, who noted they are ascendant across Europe.
"In many countries, including in Europe and North America, I am concerned by the apparently growing influence of so-called “great replacement" conspiracy theories, based on the false notion that Jews, Muslims, non-white people and migrants seek to 'replace' or suppress countries' cultures and peoples," he said.
"These delusional and deeply racist ideas have directly influenced many perpetrators of violence. Together with the so called 'war on woke,' which is really a war on inclusion, these ideas aim to exclude racial minorities – particularly women from racial minorities – and LGBTQ+ people from full equality.
"Multiculturalism is not a threat: it is the history of humanity, and deeply beneficial to us all."
However, Türk sounded a more positive note when mentioning Poland, where a long-running populist right-wing government was finally displaced from office in last year's parliamentary elections.
"The incoming coalition Government has announced its intention to restore civic freedoms and the independence of institutions that had been weakened previously," he said, |as well as reproductive rights – ending the country's near-total ban on abortion. I welcome such moves, and emphasise the need to do so in an inclusive and participative process, reflecting the country's human rights commitments."
A group of activists with a sign reading "Abortion Without Borders" demonstrate against Poland's strict anti-abortion law outside the top constitutional court in Warsaw.Czarek Sokolowski/Copyright 2022 The AP. All rights reserved
Aside from recalibrating their predecessors' often antagonistic relationship with the EU, which was fraught with differences over democratic and human rights issues, Poland's new government is trying to strengthen both media freedoms and judicial independence, both of which the previous government badly undermined in an effort to better control civic society and tighten their political control.
Meanwhile, Türk also cited several European countries for perceived racial disparities in policing.
"Last year's Being Black in the EU survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights indicates that 58% of people stopped by police in the preceding year perceived the action as racially motivated, with highest rates in Germany, Spain and Sweden. Since 2016, this perception has increased in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany and Ireland.
"It is important to analyse the factors that lie behind these perceptions, and to address them."
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Heavily armed gangs tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport on Monday, exchanging gunfire with police and soldiers in the latest attack on key government sites.
It comes as Haiti is currently experiencing an explosion of violence.
The Toussaint Louverture International Airport was closed when the attack occurred, with no planes operating and no passengers on site.
The attack was the biggest in Haiti's history on an airport.
It occurred just hours after authorities in Haiti ordered a nighttime curfew after armed gang members overran the two biggest prisons and freed thousands of inmates over the weekend.
All but 98 of the 3,798 inmates being held at the National Penitentiary escaped. Meanwhile, at the Croix-des-Bouquets prison, 1,033 escaped.
A second Port-au-Prince prison containing around 1,400 inmates also was overrun.
In response, the government ordered a 72-hour state of emergency. The government said it would try to track down the escaped inmates, with some accused of murder, kidnappings and other crimes.
Gangs already are estimated to control up to 80% of Port-au-Prince, the capital. They are increasingly coordinating their actions and choosing once unthinkable targets like the Central Bank.
Haiti’s National Police has roughly 9,000 officers to provide security for more than 11 million people, according to the UN. They are routinely overwhelmed and outgunned.
At least nine people had been killed since Thursday — four of them police officers — as gangs stepped up coordinated attacks on state institutions in Port-au-Prince, including the international airport and national soccer stadium.
Authorities are seriously concerned about the safety of judges, prosecutors, victims, attorneys and others following the mass prison escapes.
Following the raid at the penitentiary, three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance on Sunday.
In another neighbourhood, the bloodied corpses of two men with their hands tied behind their backs lay face down as residents walked past roadblocks set up with burning tires.
The US Embassy has halted all official travel to the country. On Sunday night, it urged all American citizens to depart as soon as possible.
The Biden administration, which has refused to commit troops to any multinational force for Haiti while offering money and logistical support, said it was monitoring the rapidly deteriorating security situation with grave concern.
Calls for PM to resign
The surge in attacks follows violent protests that turned deadlier in recent days as the prime minister went to Kenya seeking to move ahead on the proposed UN-backed security mission to be led by that East African country.
Henry took over as prime minister following Moise's assassination and has postponed plans to hold parliamentary and presidential elections, which haven’t happened in almost a decade.
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Jimmy Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as "Barbecue" who now runs a gang federation, has claimed responsibility for the surge in attacks. He said the goal is to capture Haiti’s police chief and government ministers and prevent Henry’s return.
The prime minister has shrugged off calls for him to resign and didn’t comment when asked if he felt it was safe to come home.