All eyez on Haiti

This issue includes al-Shabab in Somalia and the political situation in Haiti. Plus, resources on how to survive a crowd surge like the one in South Korea, a huge ProPublica investigation that sh*ts on Google, a reminder why the first non-White British Prime Minister is not a huge deal, very good statistics for female business owners in Angola, Mexico's 'Love is love' moment, another innocent Guantanamo Bay prisoner was released to Pakistan, a climate database for all you Global South observers, a Netflix rom-com recommendation from Braziland a very, very funny note from China.

Two cars exploded and killed at least 100 people died in Somalia

Two cars exploded in Mogadishu, Somalia last Saturday; one in front of the education ministry, another near a school. At least 121 people have been killed, 300 are wounded. (AP, Somali National News Agency, short SONNA)

Why this matters:
Al-Shabab is a huge problem. The jihadist group has killed thousands of people in Somalia, Uganda, Kenya and elsewhere in East Africa in the past decade. Saturday's attack has been the deadliest in five years.

Tell me more:
The whole country is in shock. "Our people who were massacred ... included mothers with their children in their arms, fathers who had medical conditions, students who were sent to study, businessmen who were struggling with the lives of their families," President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said after visiting the site of the blast. (SONNA) Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre named a 'National Committee' to take care of the victims (the government has promised US$1 million). (Voice of America)

• Did you know that a journalist, Mohamed Isee Koonaa, was also killed in the attack? He was writing a script for a video report on a speech by the country's president. Harun Maruf for Voice of America wrote a bit about him and his life; here is a picture of him. "His passion was reporting on human rights affairs about poor people." The Somali Journalists Syndicate also mourned his death.
• Zoom out: The Committee to Protect Journalists today published its Impunity Index 2022. Somalia has been "No. 1" on that list for eight straight years. The main message of the Index this year: "No one has been held to account in nearly 80 percent of journalist murders during the last 10 years, and governments show little interest in tackling the issue."

Who did this?
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but odds are that this is the work of the armed group al-Shabab. In 2017, in the same area, al-Shabab was responsible for an attack that killed more than 500 people. (Al Jazeera) Plus, in another city, in Kismayo, the group last week carried out an attack at a hotel. Nine people died and 47 others were injured. (Al Jazeera)

Tell me more about al-Shabab:
Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen, or short al-Shabab ("the youth" in Arabic), is an Islamic fundamentalist Salafi jihadist group which is based in Somalia and active elsewhere in East Africa. It is not clear how many fighters the group has; some say about 7,000, others about 12,000 (United Nations). Their annual income is probably around US$120 million. (The New York Times) The group has been fighting in Somalia for more than a decade and wants to bring down the government and establish its own rule based on a very strict interpretation of Islamic law. Think public stoning or amputations for people who have stolen stuff or cheated on their partners. The group is 'close friends' with al-Qaeda and has killed people in Uganda and Kenya, too, as Chrispin Mwakideu explains in Deutsche Welle.

What is the government doing about al-Shabab?
Fight it, or at least, talk about fighting it. President Mohamud is pretty passionate about it. On October 1, he said that there is no room for neutrality in the war against terrorism. "You're either with us or with al-Shabab." (SONNA) Mohamud, with support from the United States and other armed groups, has launched an offensive against the group. However, results have been limited. (Al Jazeera) Last week, even before the attack, the Somali government was like, 'Hey U.S. military, we want you to get more involved. What do you think?' (The New York Times) Other countries are also involved in the fight against al-Shabab. Members of the African Union have about 18,000 peacekeeping forces in Somalia. Turkey, the European Union, Britain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are also involved.

A famous politican was killed in Haiti. Now, there's talks of foreign military intervention.

A famous politician, Éric Jean Baptiste, was killed last Friday outside his home in the capital Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His bodyguard was also killed in the attack. No one has been arrested so far. (Le Nouvelliste, French)

Why this matters:
You might have read or seen news from Haiti in international news outlets when the country is not in its best shape; for example the huge 2010 earthquake or the murder of the country's president last year that is still (!) unresolved. A year later, Haiti is back in international news as yet another famous politician has been murdered. This event could lead to an important turning point in Haiti. Some higher-ups are calling for foreign military intervention because they believe that this is the only way to 'take back control from criminal gangs in Haiti'. Many activists and a large part of civil society are against it. It's important to talk about this news as it affects the lives of some 12 million people in this rather small country in the Caribbean Sea.

Okay. Let's start with last week's murder then.
Éric Jean Baptiste was killed in Laboule 12, a richer part of Pétion-Ville, Port-au-Prince. A lot of violent crimes, killings and kidnappings have happened here in the past few months; it used to be safer. However, today, Laboule 12 is controlled by an armed group named Ti Makak. It is led by Carlo Petit-Homme, alias Ti Makak. (Le Nouvelliste, French) The group is fighting with another group, the Toto gang, for control of territory. Laboule 12 is pretty close to Pelerin, where President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in his private residence in July 2021. (CBS)

Who was Baptiste?
Baptiste was a former presidential candidate and the leader of a (center-left) political party in Haiti, the Rally of Progressive National Democrats Party (RNDP). Baptiste...