Haiti is demanding Oxfam identify its aid workers who paid possibly underage sex workers in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, so they can be prosecuted, and has said it is considering legal action against the charity. Bocchit Edmond, Haiti’s ambassador to the UK, said on Monday that it was “shocked and appalled” by the way Oxfam allowed the senior workers in question to leave the country without reporting them to the Haitian authorities.

“For the executive to know these crimes were committed and to allow those people to leave without informing the authorities is wrong,” he told the Guardian. “We might be dealing with a paedophile ring. It was a crime. Prostitution is illegal and we believe they may have been underage kids.”

Haiti called on Oxfam and the British government to identify the people involved so they can be prosecuted “in the international system”. On Sunday, Oxfam’s chief executive, Mark Goldring, claimed the charity did not report its workers to Haitian police because it feared this would endanger the women involved.(theguardian)…[+]

Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, is expected to leave office within days, parliamentarians from the ruling African National Congress party have said. Zuma, who is facing multiple charges of corruption, has been negotiating the terms of his departure with Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC leader.

Ramaphosa pulled out of public events to focus on “pressing matters” on Friday, fuelling speculation that he was making a final push to convince Zuma, 75, to step down as South Africa’s head of state before a major ANC rally on Sunday. The party, in power since the end of the repressive, racist apartheid regime in 1994, has been thrown into crisis by an increasingly chaotic transfer of power from the incumbent president to his deputy and rival. Ramaphosa told parliamentarians on Thursday he hoped to conclude talks with the president over a transition of power “in coming days … in the interests of the country”. An MP told the Guardian on condition of anonymity: “He said [the negotiations] would not drag on and that we should basically expect news any moment. No one wants this to go into next week and go on and on.”(theguardian)…[+]

California police investigating a violent white nationalist event worked with white supremacists in an effort to identify counter-protesters and sought the prosecution of activists with “anti-racist” beliefs, court documents show.

The records, which also showed officers expressing sympathy with white supremacists and trying to protect a neo-Nazi organizer’s identity, were included in a court briefing from three anti-fascist activists who were charged with felonies after protesting at a Sacramento rally. The defendants were urging a judge to dismiss their case and accused California police and prosecutors of a “cover-up and collusion with the fascists”.Defense lawyers said the case at the state capital offers the latest example of US law enforcement appearing to align with neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups while targeting anti-fascist activists and Donald Trump protesters after violent clashes.“It is shocking and really angering to see the level of collusion and the amount to which the police covered up for the Nazis,” said Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley teacher and anti-fascist organizer charged with assault and rioting after participating in the June 2016 Sacramento rally, where she said she was stabbed and bludgeoned in the head. “The people who were victimized by the Nazis were then victimized by the police and the district attorneys.”(theguardian)…[+]

The US vice-president, Mike Pence, has skipped a dinner ahead of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony where he was expected to share a table with North Korea’s head of state, in a sign of Washington’s intention to snub officials from the North at the Games. Pence briefly exchanged greetings with attendees at the dinner, including the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, but avoided Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s ceremonial head of state, who is the highest level official ever to go to the South. North Korea’s high-level diplomatic delegation, which arrived in the South on Friday, also includes Kim Jong-un’s sister. Kim Yo-jong, who became the first member of Pyongyang’s ruling dynasty to set foot in South Korea since the Korean war.(theguardian)…[+]

The international criminal court is to examine complaints that Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president, has committed crimes against humanity in his brutal anti-drugs crusade. A report submitted to the ICC last year laid out evidence that Duterte had been directly responsible for “extrajudicial executions and mass murder” over three decades since he began his war on drugs as mayor of Davao in 1988.

According to official statistics, 4,000 people have been killed by the police in anti-drug operations since Duterte became president. However, the 77-page report submitted by a Philippine lawyer, Jude Sabio, alleged the death toll was over 8,000. Gary Alejano, an opposition politician who tried to get Duterte impeached last year and submitted evidence to the ICC as part of the complaint, said the ICC move was an affirmation that their claims against Duterte had legitimacy, and offered “a ray of hope for the victims of his war on drugs, which is still ongoing right now”.

He said: “In this country, people are at a loss where to go if members of your family feel victim to the war on drugs. They cannot go to police because they are involved, they cannot go to the department of justice because the secretary will say there’s no such thing as extrajudicial killing. And when we request an investigation from the House of Representatives, we can not get an impartial hearing because they are covering up for the president. There is a clear and blatant violation of the rule of law in the Philippines right now, and so the ICC are the only ones who can step in.”(theguardian)…[+]

Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the US House of Representatives, has given a record-breaking eight-hour speech in an attempt to persuade Republicans to allow a vote on protecting Dreamers, young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children. Wearing four-inch heels and forgoing any breaks, Pelosi, 77, spent much of her speech reading personal letters from young immigrants whose temporary protection from deportation is set to expire next month. She also quoted from the Bible and Pope Francis, while Democrats took turns sitting behind her in support. The Office of the House Historian said it was the longest continuous speech in the chamber on record.(theguardian)…[+]

Bermuda has become the first country to legalise and then repeal same-sex marriage, in what critics have called an unprecedented rollback of civil rights by the British island territory. Bermuda’s governor has signed into law a bill reversing the right of gay couples to marry, despite a supreme court ruling last year authorising same-sex marriage. Walton Brown, the minister of home affairs, said the legislation signed by Governor John Rankin would balance opposition to same-sex marriage on the socially conservative island while complying with European court rulings that ensure recognition and protection for same-sex couples in the territory. Bermuda’s Senate and House of Assembly passed the legislation by wide margins in December and a majority of voters opposed same-sex marriage in a referendum.(theguardian)…[+]

Greece has welcomed an announcement by the Macedonian prime minister that his country is willing to change its name, in a sign that one of the world’s most vexing disputes could soon be solved. Athens described Zoran Zaev’s readiness to add a geographical qualifier as “a positive step” that would dispel fears over its adjacent region of Macedonia. Among the new names being considered are Upper Macedonia, New Macedonia, Northern Macedonia and Macedonia (Skopje), according to well-placed diplomats.

“This is an important development,” said the Greek foreign ministry in a statement released shortly after Zaev said the Balkan state would also rename its airport and national motorway. “We hope that it marks the start of a new chapter in the relations between our two countries and peoples.” Compromise is unpopular in sections of Greek society. On Wednesday, the Greek Orthodox church held an extraordinary meeting of its governing synod to discuss the name issue. Clerics were among the hundreds of thousands of people who protested in Athens on Sunday over the prospect of a solution that would include the word Macedonia. The region of Macedonia, formerly part of the Ottoman empire, spreads across Greece, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Athens has objected to its northern neighbour’s use of the name since it proclaimed independence in 1991.(theguardian)…[+]

The wedding of Japan’s Princess Mako will be postponed for two years because of insufficient preparations as the imperial palace denied speculation the decision was related to tabloid criticism of her fiance’s family background.Mako and her college classmate Kei Komuro, a commoner, announced their engagement last September and were to wed in November.

In announcing the delay, the Imperial Household Agency cited “a series of important ceremonies next year,” apparently meaning the planned handover of the Chrysanthemum Throne. No new dates for the wedding or its preceding rituals were given. Mako is Emperor Akihito’s oldest grandchild. The 84-year-old emperor is to abdicate on 30 April, 2019, with Crown Prince Naruhito taking the throne the next day.

The surprise delay less than a month before a planned ceremony in March to formalize the couple’s engagement left many people puzzled. Agency official Takaharu Kachi told reporters the decision was not related to tabloid reports about disputes between Komuro’s mother and her former partner over money she borrowed to cover her son’s tuition and never repaid, Japanese media reported.(theguardian)…[+]

Kenyan authorities have deported a senior opposition figure in the latest move of a wide-ranging crackdown on political opponents and an intensifying confrontation with the judiciary. Miguna Miguna, who had been held in police custody in defiance of a court order demanding his release, was put on a flight to Canada via Europe at about 10pm on Tuesday.

“The illegitimate, despotic regime … forcefully placed me on a late night KLM flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam in flagrant violation of my constitutional rights, five court orders and common decency,” Miguna said in a statement on Wednesday. The lawyer was arrested last week in a dawn raid on his home in Nairobi after participating in a mock swearing-in ceremony for opposition leader Raila Odinga that was attended by thousands of people.

Government lawyers called the ceremony an act of treason. Three TV networks were closed down after broadcasting it, of which two have reopened. Fourteen opposition members have had their passports suspended. Judges had ordered the authorities to free Miguna, but instead he was presented in court in a small town 60km (37 miles) from the capital on Tuesday, to be charged with “being present and consenting to the administration of an oath to commit a capital offence”.(theguardian)…[+]